B V 

4515 



j LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,! 



Shelf .ItMle. 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



DOCTRINE 




THE NEW BIRTH, 



EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF 

ONE SIM US,- ! 



FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE T WENT if -FIFTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, OR FROM 
THE TEAR 1779 TO 1793, INCLUSIVE. 

Also, The visions which he saw concerning the city of Philadelphia, in the State 
of Pennsylvania, in the days when George Washington was the President of 
the United States of North America, and in the year of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, 1792. The visions with several of the special events of his life 
shall be illustrated with twenty plates, and the whole designed as a defence of 
the truth of the Gospel, and proof of the immortality of the human soul. 
Written in twenty letters, and dedicated to Elder Joseph Maylin. 

Onesimus. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
PRINTED BY WILLIAM F. R ACKLIFF. 

Corner of George and Swanwick streets. 



1839. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, iri the year 1839, by 
John Hewson, 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



9 



3 




No. 1. The ship Perseverance, commanded by Captain Onesimus, 
leaving the shores of time, with her sails loose, and anchor 
weighed; bound on a voyage of discovery, in search of the 
immortality of the human soul, and with a full determination, 
like Columbus, to convince himself of the existence of ano- 
ther and better world than this, as a counterpoise to this world 
of sin and death. 

No. 2. Captain Onesimus, viewing through the telescope of faith, 
the bright and morning star of immortality. 

No. 3. Satan, the God of this sinful world, and the Prince of 
darkness, standing on the lantern of the light-house of the 
age of reason and philosophy, taking a view of Onesimus, 
casting oft' his fealty to the Prince of darkness, and leaving 
the shores of time. 

No. 4. Christ, the bright and morning star. 

« Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be 
afraid ? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done 
it ? Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his 
secrets unto his servants the prophets. The Lion hath roared, 
who will not fear? The Lord God hath spoken, who can but 
prophesy."-— Jlmos, iii chap. 6, 7, 8 verses. 



Dear Sir : — In hope that this little work may have a tendency 
to promote the cause of our common Lord and Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, I have presumed to commend the following letters to your 
patronage, and humbly subscribe myself your affectionate brother 
in the bonds of the gospel, ONESIMUS. 1839. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin, of Philadelphia. 

The Watch-word to be used on board the ship Perseverance, 
during the voyage to the shores of immortality, — "Marvel not that 
I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind hloweth where 
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst tell whence 
it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of 
the spirit." — John, 3, 7, 8. 

Letter T. contains the first serious impressions that were made 
on his mind, by a sermon preached from the xxiv. Psalm, in 1779, 
44 Who is the king of glory?" and the gloomy state of his mind, 
at seeing three persons executed, and the awful temptations which 
followed him to about the fifteenth year of his age. 



DOCTRINE 



OF THE NEW BIRTH. 



LETTER I. 

Dear Sir : — I shall pass by the childhood and early 
youth of Onesimus, believing with the wisest of the He- 
brew sages, (Solomon,) that they are days which only 
present weakness and vanity, and begin where the Lord 
in his wisdom and mercy began with him, to call him out 
of the horrible pit, into which Adam by his transgression 
cast the whole race of mankind. 

The first serious impressions which, he at this distance 
of time can distinctly recollect, were made on his mind 
in the summer of 1779 : under a sermon delivered by 
Elder Spraut, pastor of the Second Presbyterian church 
of Philadelphia, from the xxiv. Psalm, '"Who is the king 
of Glory? 2 ' This interesting discourse drew tears from 
his eyes, and for a season made some serious impression 
on "his mind. The which led him for a few weeks to be 
very reserved in his words, and cautious in his conduct, 
so much so, that it soon elicited the attention of some of 
his father's family, and especially a young female, who 
did at times exclaim, u that if he went on with his seri- 
ousness much longer, he would become a Presbyterian 
minister. 22 And to this outward change of his conversa- 
tion, he added the frequent use of the Lord's prayer, 
night and day, whither he was in his father's house or ara^ 
bulating the city streets. But it being in the midst of the 
revolutionary war, and his father but lately returned 
from being a prisoner among the British at New York, 
and was at this time engaged in keeping a house or 
rendezvous to recruit men for the shipping in the port 



6 



of Philadelphia; and at the same time was a captain of 
a company of militia. So that there was nothing to be 
seen or heard of at home, but the sound of the drum 
and fife, or seen but fire-arms, colours, and other war- 
like articles ; and not a single person to his knowledge 
in the family at that time, who thought of God, or 
experienced any concern for their soul's immortality? 
and as those warlike preparations were daily passing 
before his view, when in process of time, all his seri- 
ousness, with the almost hourly repetition of the Lord's 
prayer, soon were banished from his thoughts. 

When his legal fears, watching, and praying, simul- 
taneously spread their ephemeral wings, and took their 
flight, and left his mind in Egyptian darkness, without 
the smallest ray of spiritual light, so that all his convic- 
tions, and legal resolution to serve God, was succeeded 
by the dark clouds of sin and unbelief, and his person 
surrounded with a dense atmosphere of ignorance, both 
of the nature and character of God, so that not a single 
ray of light passed through the impenetrable gloom. 

But the Lord, who is rich in mercy, had not given 
up this young sinner as a forlorn hope, and our dear 
old shipmate will bear m his mind that our countersign, 
or watch- word, on board the ship Perseverance, during 
the voyage, was taken from the log-book of Captain 
John Gospel. The wind bloweth where it listeth, so 
that when sailing at one point of the compass, does not 
bring a sinner to the knowledge of the truth; the Lord 
will send a mackerel breeze from another quarter of the 
providential heavens, to re-alarm a poor sinful boy, and 
cause him finally to flee the wrath to come. 

Therefore in the year 1780 or 1781, we do not now 
distinctly remember which, four coloured and one 
white person descended from within the British lines in 
the vicinity of New York, and came down the Dela- 
ware in a boat, within less than three miles of the city 
of Philadelphia, and robbed a farm-house belonging to 
one William Ball, of some silver plate, and other valu- 
able articles not recollected. But soon after the rob- 
bery, they were advertised in the public papers of those 
days, and a reward offered for their apprehension, and 



7 



they were taken in some part of East Jersey, as they 
were returning to the British lines with their plunder, 
and brought to Philadelphia, and tried by the then 
existing laws of the state of Pennsylvania, and the whole 
of them condemned to die. 

And when the day of their execution arrived, Onesi- 
mus being about twelve years of age, went with the 
multifarious throng to the place of execution, and as 
the five men were sitting on their coffins under the 
gallows* two of the coloured persons received a pardon 
from the Governor of the State, and the other three 
where launched into that world where poor mourning 
Job dolorously cries, "There the wicked cease from 
troubling; and there the weary be at rest; there the 
prisoners rest together ; they hear not the voice of the 
oppressor. The small and the great are there, and the 
servant is free from his master." Shipmate, how most 
solemnly sublime is this dolorous canticle of human wo : 
and here, with poor Job, let us for a moment view man- 
kind on the greatest acme of earthly glory, both in 
church and state, and elevate our minds so as to behold 
the several clouds of the restless ambition of the vain 
sons of men, after conquest, and empire; we would with 
humble difference ask them, where is the Nimrod of 
of the bible, with all the great and lessor sattelites of 
conquest and dominion, which, from age to age, have 
been revolving round this wandering comet after earthly 
power. Truly, old shipmate, we are justified in sing- 
ing with Job. The oppressor, and the oppressed rest 
together, in one physical and common level. And for 
a farther solution of Job's canticle, let the mournful page 
of history, which groans and weeps blood at every pa- 
ragraph it records, join the chorus with Job, and then 
view what folly the past history of the world presents 
to the serious and reflecting mind. Shipmate, it seems 
somewhat difficult to find an allegory, symbol, figure, 
or type, to set forth the foliy of designing, and ambiti- 
tious men, in a just and true point of light. But when 
Onesimus was on shore, and standing for a few moments 
at the foot of a cataract, and viewing the effect which 
the rushing and impetuous water made on the face of 



6 



the waters, in the basin below, which would suddenly 
create millions of those little airy castles on the surface 
of the gliding waters, and as he stood and viewed them, 
he perceived they were of various dimensions, and here 
and there a solitary bubble arose, like Saul, king of Israel, 
a head and shoulder taller than the most of his watery 
brethren, so that when the rays of light darted these 
coruscation through these transparent walls, which 
would for a few moments adorn those airy temples, with 
some of those tints which are seen in the rainbow, and 
here and there one of those watery dooms, would out 
live, and for a few moments outshine their lesser water] 
brethren. 

But in a few moments more he viewed them, and ex- 
claimed, the small and the great are there, and the sons 
of men slip their wind, and like their watery type, seek 
in their parent element, the earth, a physical and com- 
mon level, and the servant is free from his master, and 
the slave is freed from the power of the tyrant. And 
as he stood cogitating in his mind about the water bub- 
bles, as a natural mirror, which showed him the variety 
of the human race, with all their momentary and dis- 
tinguishable size, and shade of colour, such as conquest, 
dominion, power, honour, earthly glory, riches, birth, 
and the wisdom of this world, all gliding away on the 
passing waters of time, and forever lost in the basin be- 
low, when he said to himself, what a poor insignificant 
being is man, or in the language of the royal saint, what 
is man, that thou art mindful of him ? And the more so 
if the doctrine of the bible is not true, as many of the 
great and wise men of this world say, that the old book 
is only calculated to frighten children, and old ladies, 
about ghosts, and spectres after the death of the body. 

When they are ready to ask the followers of Christ, 
what person in this state, ever saw the thing called the 
human soul. But, old shipmate, notwithstanding the 
fastidious views of the wise gentlemen of the world, re- 
specting the person of Christ, and the doctrine of the 
soul's immortality, which he so positively and clearly 
taught, and the careless interest they appear to take 
either in the eternal happiness or misery of their souls 
in a coming world. 



9 



And it came to pass, that after these reflections had 
passed for a few moments through his mind, when some 
kind or sister spirit, like as oar Lord said to the Jew- 
ish Rabbi: — "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof."' So is every one that 
is born of the spirit, brought to bis recollection. The 
fatherly advice of Phillip to his young son upon a cer- 
tain occasion, (who has been called by historians Alex- 
ander the Great.) which came with great force to his 
mind. My son, said Phillip of Macedon, seek a 
better and larger kingdom, than the small patrimony of 
your father has it in his power to bestow upon you, for 
Macedon is too small for you, it has neither riches, 
glory, length, breadth, nor physical resources, to ac- 
commodate, the vast mental and physical prowess the 
which, my son, you have this day in the presence of 
my court placed in our view. 

And it came to pass, that when this young Scion had 
arrived to man's estate, that Alexander with the feal- 
ty of a dutiful son, remembered the prayer and coun- 
sel of his father, and placed the same in all his 
wars fully before his mind, and indulged the sound of 
his father's prayer to be ever vibrating in his ears, 
when Onesimus said, such counsel from a father, and 
such fealty on the part of a son, is worthy our imitation, 
when he said to his Soul, seek a better kingdom than 
this bubbling world, this time state, this theatre of 
vanity, for it has neither length nor breadth, nor height 
nor depth ; to satisfy the physical and mental prowess 
of the vast empire of thy mind. Our old shipmate is 
ready to call out to the man at the wheel or helm, that 
it is high time to brace the yards and haul aft the sheets, 
and trim the bowlings, and leave poor Job to sing his 
mournful song to himself, and sail up to latitude of the 
gallows, in order to let us hear how this young sailor 
comes on with his dolorous reflections respecting those 
three malefactors, in the agonies of death. And it came 
to pass* as young Onesimus stood at a distance and 
viewed them, with their white caps over their faces, as 
they hung suspended under the gallows, when these 
gloomy thoughts suddenly rushed through his mind, 

B 



10 



respecting human nature, and why it was, that an all 
wise and powerful being, should suffer or permit any of 
the children of men, to come to such a tragical end, or 
what could have been the ultimate design of the great 
author of nature in bringing into existence such a 
wretched race of beings, that any of them should be 
brought to such an awful end. When he was ready in 
the dolorous language of Paul to exclaim, 66 0, wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death. " But we think we hear our old shipmate, 
as he sits in his cabin, with the hanging compass over 
his head, as we have once said, call out to the helms- 
man, not to let the ship Perseverance fall off from the 
winds eye, and the point of tbe compass, which the 
ship set out to steer by, on her voyage to the land of 
immortality, by first beaiing away after Nimrod, and 
then the kings of the earth, and then bearing down on 
poor shipwrecked Job, and then, to a college of wise 
Philosophers. But haul your wind and sail up to the 
place of execution and inform us how this youngster 
made it out with his melancholy view, on the condition 
of the sons of men. Dear old shipmate, we are led to 
receive your wise, and timely admonitions as correct, 
and shall hereafter endeavor to keep them, like young 
Alexander did his father's counsel, always in mind. 



11 




No. 1. The young sailor excogitating 1 in his mind on the mysterious 
designs of the Almighty, in permitting any of the human race 
to come to such an awful end. 

No. 2. The three men as they hung in the agonies of death. 

No. 3. The two men who received a pardon from the governor" of 
Pennsylvania. 

No. 4. The Sheriff presenting the pardon to the two men as they 
were seated on their coffins. 

And it came to pass, after the execution was 
over, that young Onesimus, came home to his father's 
house, when the most gloomy and melancholy views of 
the human race, passed in quick succession through his 
mind, followed by a constant presentation of the three 
dying malefactors as they hung under the gallows. 

And the next day, for the first twelve years of his 
existence, he was most suddenly and powerfully tempt- 
ed to drown himself in the Delaware river, in order 
to get rid of an existence, that to him appeared to be 
so dark and mysterious, and from that day he became 
the unhappy subject of these deleterious thoughts, more 
or less, night and day ; and especially so, when any in- 
strument or other means of danger was in his view. 
Such, for instance, as the loaded fire-arms in his father's 
house, or any deep water, or being elevated from the 
earth, or any other danger was in his view. Now it is 
evident that these thoughts were not his own, for this 
obvious reason, for the moment the instrument or other 



% 



12 

means of self destruction were out of his sight, those aw- 
ful thoughts were gone from his mind, the which leads 
us to conclude that these deleterious thoughts were the 
work of some hidden and foreign agency. No wonder, 
then, if those evil thoughts that followed this young sin- 
ner night and day were the suggestions of satan, as they 
had no location in his mind, only when some place of 
danger or instrument of destruction presented itself to 
his view. 

Thus this young lad went on his way, daily having his 
mind pestered with those deleterious thoughts, and could 
not divert his mind from them, when any dangerous 
place or instrument was near him. 

Therefore, satan by his wiles, caused this young boy 
to sigh and groan within himself, in consequence of being 
pestered with such unnatural ideas, for about a wh oleyear; 
and finding that his hidden master, kept this poor young 
sinner, at the same lesson more or less every day, when 
he at times became so low spirited, that he had thoughts 
of running away from school, not knowing at that time, 
that his Lord and master of old sent his young lads he de- 
signed for the work of the ministry, on board his gospel 
armament to the college of temptation to finish their edu- 
cation. — James says, 66 blessed is the man that endur- 
eth temptation ; for when he is tried, he shall receive 
the crown of life," which leads us once more to observe, 
by taking special notice of the same, that God having 
but one only begotten Son, sent him to this college or 
school, to finish his studies under that celebrated teacher 
the devil, it is very singular to remark, that three of the 
chief officers who have sent their sea or Cape letters to the 
gospel armament, have taken particular notice of this 
part of our Lord's education, as the last ornamental ac- 
complishment that his divine Father saw, was indispen- 
sably necessary, so that he might obtain his diploma 
signed by the Spirit of God, in order that Christ might 
be inducted into the priestly office, and become the min- 
ister of God's true sanctuary. Now, Matthew and Luke 
tell us that the spirit of God lead his Son by the leading 
string of fealty : to this severe master that is, in their 
language, to be tempted of the devil. But Mark is much 



13 



more bold, and says that the Spirit of God, or the Holy 
Ghost, drove his Son into the wilderness to be tempted 
of the devil. 66 And immediately the Spirit driveth 
him into the wilderness," Mark i. 12. And now, dear 
shipmate, surely it can be no disgrace to poor Onesimus 
that it pleased God to send him to study so hard for a 
whole year. 

And now what are the inferences which common 
sense draws from the views the writer has hastily taken 
of the spiritual accomplishments of a true minister of the 
gospel sanctuary, why they are as follows, and we are full 
of confidence to believe., that we have some pretty wise, 
and experienced officers on our side of the argument, to 
wit: That however richly a person is or may be adorned 
with the science, which the most finished education 
can bestow in this mundane state, without the special 
grace of God to change and sanctify their hearts, as Paul 
says they are nothing more nor less, than a sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbol, yet it is true that many un- 
sanctified men may wish to follow Christ into the minis- 
try of his militant church, as some of the Jews did for 
the sake of the loaves and fishes, and they may be in the 
most extensive possession of the vast republic of letters 
that embrace the elements of all languages, both of men 
and angels, and as we have already observed in the little 
case of our water bubbles, that here and there one 
raises his head, like as in the case of Saul, a little above 
his lesser brethren in the outward church of Christ on 
earth, and for a few days or years, with the overwhelm- 
ing elements of his powerful and prostrating oratory and 
for a while bears down all opposition, and using a natu- 
ral figure just like the rushing in of mighty waters, car- 
ries the minds and views of thousands, (as Paul says in 
his last letter to Timothy having itching ears,) into the 
unbound sea of their vast designs of evangelizing the 
world without the special power of the Mighty God of 
Israel, in some miraculous way co-operating with them, 
and others with the fashionable theology of the day, with 
the intense study over the outward letter of the gospel, 
being at the same time entirely unacquainted with the 
watch- word on board the ship Perseverance. "Marvel 



14 



not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The 
wind bloweth where itlisteth, and thou nearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither 
it goeth : so is every one that is born of the spirit." 
John iii. 7. 8. And although, these wonderful paragons, 
of the dead letter of the gospel may with the softer ele- 
ments of fine periods, and harmonious sounds of well 
selected words, cause the high wrought sensibility of 
many of their admirers to make them almost believe they 
are seated under the tree of life, which is in the midst 
of the paradise of God. But your admonition reminds 
us of our duty simultaneously with the rushing sand of 
time, through its ephemeral hour glass of life. Not to 
let the ship fall off the wind's ev r e so often, the which 
your seafaring experience teaches you is too often the 
case, when the sailor at the wheel gets in some disul- 
torious conversation, with one of the passengers or by- 
standers, the which too often diverts his eye from the 
shivering condition of his sails as well the sure point of 
the compass of the ship Perseverance, so that we receive 
your admonition both timely and wise. 

My dear old shipmate, it becomes our duty to adver- 
tise you, that young Onesimus, studied for about a year 
under this celebrated Doctor, who was and is still the 
President of the college of Temptation, that it came to 
pass, that after his master, become too severe, so that 
the old adage would fitly apply in his case, all work and 
no pastime would finally make this young sailor a dull 
boy, and keeping him at the same monotonous lesson 
every day; that is being beset by satan to destroy himself 
in some way or other, for more than a whole year, after 
seeing the three men executed, and at the same time 
being ignorant of the way of deliverance through faith 
in the blood and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. So 
that he had no ears to hear, nor heart to understand the 
voice of kindness, and mercy through his revealed word 
to poor tempted sailors. 

And poor stupid, and ignorant Onesimus, not know- 
ing any way to get clear of such revolsive ideas, he 
thought to himself that he would try and get a boy's 
birth on board of one of the small privateers, that sailed 



15 



out of the port of Philadelphia so as to get to sea, and go 
to some other part of the world, and if the fates (so 
that you see that this lad, with millions of others in this 
dark and sinful world, had not the least distant idea of 
the dark agency of satan, as the primary cause of all his 
unnatural thoughts,) should at last propel him to do the 
act of destroying himself, he might be in some other part 
of the world, when his friends and family should not be 
permitted to behold the awful catastrophe. In the fall of 
1782 he made several attempts to get a birth on board 
some of the small war vessels. But as there was at that 
time a great prospect of peace between America and Eng- 
land, a small boy who had not been to sea, stood but little 
chance to get a birth without the special interest of 
friends, and as he could not obtain the agency of friends in 
getting to sea, he had to give the sea voyage, or priva- 
teering business up. 

And it came to pass that early in the spring of 1783, 
that his temptations suddenly spread their wings and de- 
parted for a season, (as was the case with our Lord. 
And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he 
departed from him for a season, Luke iv. 13.) When he 
gave up the idea of going to sea. But the Lord was not 
going to let the young sinner entirely abandon a seafar- 
ing life, and as we have no doubt, run our ship Perse- 
verance foul of your locker of patience, we put up the 
old inkhorn, and close our logbook, and turn into our 
hammock, till the morning watch on deck, and if the 
cherub who sets a loft should give us a fine day, we 
shall be tempted to open the old logbook of our ship and 
write you again something about this young lad's cape 
letter from on board the ship Perseverance bound on a 
voyage of discovery, in search of the souFs immortality. 

Port of Philadelphia, March 30, 1783. 

OnESIMUSj 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 



16 



LETTER II 

Onesimus leaving his father's house and going to the city of New- 
York, while the British army had possession of the same, and a 
vision of spirits which was seen by all on board the vessel in York 
Bay in the summer of 1783. 

Dear sir, — Our last sea letter left young Onesimus out of 
the college of temptation, it being a season of vacation 
during which time the thoughtless youth forgot all the 
useful lessons, the old President of the college of temp- 
tation had taught him. 

Therefore his heavenly father (although at that time 
he had no perfect nor distinct knowledge, that he was 
in any degree related to the royal family) saw proper to 
take him for a season from under the tuition of Satan, and 
send him to another college and put him under a celebrat- 
ed teacher whose name was the wise and unerring Provi- 
dence of God, so that in this vast establishment there 
was taught a greater variety of the sciences than in the 
college of temptation the which were more congenial to 
the habits of Onesimus, than the dull turmoil of going 
through, and reciting the same lesson over and over 
again every day, and as President Providence made it a 
general rule or maxim, to drill his young gospel cadets 
in some new branch of seamanship in order that when 
their education is finished, they might be able to add to 
their faith, virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ; and to 
knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience ; 
and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly 
kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity, .or rather 
Love. 2 Peter i. 5 — 7.) So that this wise arrangement 
you see entirely removes any dull or monotonous effects 
from the student's mind and renders his condition at col- 
lege more filicitous. 

You remember that our last scroll from the log-book 
of our ship, informed you that the lad was no longer 
troubled like Alexander the great) with the cooing voice 
of the old soldier, the serpent of hell, or satan, on the 
outside of his tent, or in our vernacular tongue those 
evil thoughts and temptations to destroy himself, so that 
he gave up the idea of going to sea. But you no doubt 



17 



remember our countersign, or watch word during this long 
hazardous voyage was to be, that the wind bloweth where 
It listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but can- 
not tell from whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, 
so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Therefore, 
one of those wires, yet in some sense like the dreams of 
young Joseph, which appears like an hair link which 
connects the vast chain of providence together, took 
place in the month of June 1783, his father sent him with 
his hired man into the city of Philadelphia, to bring 
out of the city, some articles used in his business, and 
when returning with the same the horse took fright at 
something unknown to this day, and running the cart on 
teh side of an hill overturned the same, the which broke 
many of the articles to pieces, and would have kil ed 
the unworthy subject of our biography on the spot had 
he not possesed the presence of mind to spring from under 
the cart as it went over, and when they returned home 
with the news of the disaster, the man to clear himself 
irorn having the damages to pay, laid the blame on 
Onesimus by telling his father that he undertook to 
drive the horse contrary to his desire, the which had no 
foundation in truth and when he found that his father 
admitted the man's statement of the case to be correct, he 
experienced a little of the choler of his sinful nature to 
rise, and his father having promised that the damages 
should be all settled the next morning, and knowing 
him to be a person of his word in all matters of that 
character, he said to himself the time is come for him to 
be off into the wide world, when he went into the house 
and tied up his few clothes into a handkerchief, with 
about five or six dollars in money, (which he had been 
saving together for some length of time to buy a fowling- 
piece ; the possession of which at that time he thought 
would complete his happiness in this world,) and off he 
went like his foolish brother, the prodigal in Luke gos- 
pel, but under quite dissimilar circumstances; for his 
was young to fall into the prodigal's folly, for he had no 
money to spare in any kind of riotous living, and too 
young in life to experience the counter part of his folly, 
his departure took place about five o'clock in the after- 

C 



18 



noon, on the 10th of June, 1783. Onesimus run into 
the city that evening, and went on board a large ship 
which had just arrived from England, after the peace of 
1783. The sailors of the ship granted him the favour 
of staying in the ship all night, for having left his home 
in anger, and being grieved in his spirit that the hired 
person had accused him wrongfully to his father, so that 
he knew not what to do, nor where he intended to go, 
any more than to get from home, and the smell of the 
ship was not very agreeable to his olfactory nerves that 
night. He rose early next morning, and looking over 
the stern of the ship in the direction of his father's house, 
when he saw a boat coming down the Delaware, not more 
than a quarter of a mile distance from the ship in which he 
saw a person standing in the stern of the same; which 
he soon discovered was his father, when he instantly 
run out of the ship, when the voice of his father reiter- 
ated in his ears, " My son, don't runjoff from your father; n 
when he run out of the vessel, and up the wharf with all 
speed, and hid himself in some out-house, in Southwark 
Philadelphia. 



19 




No. 1. His father calling to him, and saying my son don't run off 
from your father. 

No. 2. Oriesimus in the act of running off from the voice of his 
father. 

No. 3. The large English ship, in the which he sleep the first 
night after he set sail to find the soul's immortality. 

No. 4 A small island called Wind-mill Island, opposite the city 
of Philadelphia. 

No. 5. The city of Philadelphia as it appeared in 1783. 

In the which he tarried about half an hour till he 
thought his father had given over searching for him. 
But while he was in this loathsome prison, he cogitated 
in his mind what to do, and which way he should steer 
his course, when the idea struck his mind to go to New 
York, as the only place to elude the search of his father. 

And when he came out of his hiding place, he ran 
round by the Schuylkill side of the city, and got into 
the road that leads to Trenton, (a place noted in the re- 
volutionary war, where Washington suddenly surprised 
about a thousand of the royal army of George the third, 
king of England, and made them prisoners of war; the 
which appears to the writer as one of those wonderful 
hair-links of an overruling Providence, on the which 
converged, as on a single point, the destiny of a nation 
only as yet in a state of embryo, so that the wisdom, skill 
and sword of Washington, by this act, thrown into the 
vibrating scale of the war of 1776, caused it to prepon- 



20 



derate in favour of the salvation of a people destined, we 
humbly trust, to be one of the greatest nations of the 
earth; but in a special sense in consequence of the light 
of civil and religious liberty. She as a national telegraph? 
converging her rays of civil light on all the oppressed 
and enslaved children of men.) 

But to return to the case of Onesimus. On the even- 
ing of the second day he reached a place in New Jersey 
called Perth Amboy, and from hence got on board a small 
vessel for New York. In this vessel he fell in with a 
young person about 19 or 20 years of age, who was going 
in search of his sister, who during the revolutionary 
war, and while the British army were in the State of 
New Jersey, had married a quarter- master of one of the 
British regiments. And as peace had taken place, the 
parents or other friends of the family, sent the brother 
to ascertain her situation. When the young man arriv- 
ed at New York he was informed the regiment was at a 
place on Long Island, called Flushing. So the young 
man persuaded the subject of our little history to accom- 
pany him, as he was a stranger in search of his sister. 
So they went on the Island together, and when they had 
proceeded a few miles, they were stopped by the British 
guards, who demanded their pass $ but having none to 
present, they were put into the guard-house, and after a 
short time brought before the officer of the day, to whom 
the young man stated the object of their journey, which 
was to see his sister ; and giving the name of her husband, 
and regiment to whieh he belonged, the officer let them 
pass, without farther detention. And when they came 
to Flushing, he found his sister; but the quarter-master 
and the regiment were at a place called. Oyster Bay, 
from twenty to thirty miles distant, when her brother 
concluded, that as long as he had come so far, he would 
go and see his sister's husband before he returned to her 
father's house. Here it may be proper to remark that 
the lady had the appearance of the wreck of a handsome 
person ; but in consequence of the indulgence of a dete- 
riorating, or rather degrading vice, she had greatly, like 
the Queen of Egypt in the days of Caesar Augustus, de- 
preciated some of the tenets of her former beauty, and 



21 



after staying at Flushing a few days, the brother set off 
to Oyster Bay, and took the subject of our dolorous story 
with him, and the next day found his sister's husband at 
the above place, who behaved very kindly to the young 
man, and from the conversation that passed between them 
it appeared that the quarter-master had been once ex- 
cessively and passionately fond of his sister, and he told 
him that her base conduct was such, that he should not 
go nigh her any more. And as the young man had seen 
enough of her conduct the short time he remained at 
Flushing, so that he could not deny her husband's state- 
ment of her case. And as the quarter-master occupied 
a red frame building as a store or depository of the am- 
munition, provisions, and other warlike articles for the 
regiment ; and he being much of his time out of the store, 
he wanted a boy about the age and size of Onesimus to 
stay and mind the store during the times of his absence; 
and being a stranger, and his little money almost gone, 
he accepted the berth, and the young man returned to 
his people, and left his young acquaintance in the employ 
of his sister's husband, and have never saw each other 
since. 

Onesimus was well satisfied with his new quarters for 
about two weeks, when an imaginary danger, or in the 
view of many persons will no doubt be considered as a 
trifling thing, disturbed his resting place. According 
to a declaration of holy writ, (there is no peace, saith my 
God, to the wicked. Isaiah 57, 21.) This small occur- 
rence, or rather incident, which drove him from his new 
berth, was as follows : There was close by his bed where 
he had to sleep, several kegs of gun powder, the which, 
when he understood what was in them, when it so pow- 
erfully wrought on his fears, lest the exploding article 
by some accident should be ignited and blow him to a 
thousand pieces, for he was now fond of life, and Satan 
was not at this season permitted to tempt him as on form- 
er occasions, and as his fears increased night and day, so 
that his sleep departed from him, when he rose early one 
morning and set off for New York, and there fell in with 
a refugee Captain, that owned a small vessel, who at that 
time followed fishing for a kind of fish named seabass and 



22 



blackfish, and also bringing the Jersey people with their 
produce to the New York Market, who received for 
the same the silver and gold of the British army, who 
still had possession of the city. Onesimus hired with 
this captain for an English guinea per month, early in 
July, 1783; and was well pleasedjwith his new occupa- 
tion and master, and he had plenty of that which was 
necessary to live on. 

And one day as the vessel was crossing York Bay 
from the Narrows to Sandy Hook light-house, as the 
boy Onesimus was steering the vessel, when his captain 
came and took the helm, and sent the boy into the hold 
of the vessel to clean out the same after the market peo- 
ple, who always made more or less dirt in the hold with 
their articles of produce going up to the market, and 
among the hay and other rubbage he found two pieces 
of gold of the value of eight Spanish dollars, these he 
put into his pocket, and there is no doubt but some of 
the country people lost the same out of their pockets, 
asithey^had to sleep or lie down in the hold of the ves- 
sel in crossing the bay. And when he had cleaned the 
hold of the vessel and put all things in order to please 
his master he came on deck, and went into the cabin as 
though he had something to do, when he took up a 
brick out of the hearth of the fire-place of the cabin 
and deposited the two pieces of gold in the place from 
which he had raised the brick, and placed the piece of 
brick in its former place again ; and then came on deck 
and took the helm again, and the captain was never the 
wiser of what he had been doing. Suffer us to notice 
that that these two pieces of gold under the overruling 
of an alwise providence, were the only outward means 
of getting Onesimus a few clothes for the ensuing win- 
ter: which leads us to observe how many little things 
in our view transpire, although they are under an alwise 
but to us a mysterious providence. 

And it came to pass that after this occurrence, that 
Onesimus and his captain were reciprocally satisfied with 
each other's conduct, all the time he sailed in this re- 
fugee captain's employ, which was about three months 
and a half. And as we have nothing more worthy of 



23 



remark, with the exception of one singular occurrence, 
which took place in the month of August, 1783, and if 
true, goes to prove the immortality of the human soul, 
and confound the skeptical doctrines of the age. And 
was as follows: the writer is fully sensible that in giving 
this statement to the world, that he will be the acci- 
dental cause of getting his fleece wet with the risibility 
of philosophy, and a host of other wise and knowing 
ones of this age. But a sense of duty presses us on to 
disregard their fits of laughter, believing the day is fast 
approaching when their risible countenances will be be- 
dewed with a flood of tears ; be that as it may we shall 
fear lessly make the statement of the case to the world. 



24 




No. 1. The sloop in which Onesimus was, when the strange vessel 

passed her by without wind. 
No. 2. The schooner full of people which passed by their sloop in 

a dead calm, without the propelling power of the wind. 
No. 3. A Spanish ship on a shoal in York Bay, and in great distress 

with her hold full of water. 

Our old shipmate will bear with our folly, as Paul 
says to one of the churches in his day : — Now the 
things which we write we lie not, but speak the truth 
before God. One night in the month of August, 1783, 
as the sloop was laying in the middle of York bay, which 
lays between Sandy Hook light-house and the Narrows, 
becalmed, and the sea like a sheet of glass, and not the 
least breath of air moving over the face of the surround- 
ing waters, and the moon shining with peculiar bright- 
ness ; when a schoooner full of people passed by the 
sloop in which Onesimus was in, and so close that all 
hands on board the vessel conld clearly see the people 
on the deck of ths schooner, and the colour of her sails, 
when she sudenly vanished out of their sight. When 
the captain of the sloop Onesimus was in, said to us all, 
did you see the schoener pass by our vessel? when we 
all anwsered him in the affirmative : when the captain 
observed to all on board his vessel, that this was a token 
for some one or more on board his vessel, that their 
time, was short in this world. 



25 



Now in order to prove to oar venerable old shipmate 
that our vision had some foundation in truth, respecting 
the schooner peopled with spirits, or the ghosts of the 
departed sons of men, "at a little distance from the sloop 
lay a large Spanish Ship in great distress, on a shoal or 
bar in or about the middle of York-bay, having bilged, 
and her lower hold full of water, and among the articles 
that constituted her cargo, was a large quantity of sul- 
phur, and salt-petre, which when it came in contact 
with the sea water, created foul air in the hold of 
the ship. The next day when a number of small craft 
were round the ship trying to save as much of her car- 
go as they could, and while most of the crew of the 
Spanish ship was at work in the lower hold, getting 
what of the articles of the cargo they could to the hatch- 
ways of the ship, in order that the hands on deck might 
hoist them out, and put them on board the small vessels 
alongside, when a simultaneous, or sudden collection of 
the foul air from the different articles of the cargo, 
suffocated all the hands of the ship, who were at work 
in the lower hold, and when the hands on the deck of 
the ship supposing they were overcome with the heat 
of the weather, rushed down into the hold of the ship 
to relieve their drowning shipmates, when they also in 
like manner were suffocated, so that a ship of about 
eight hundred tons burden, lost near all her hands in a 
few minutes of time, the captain of our vessel although 
a refugee, with the rest of the hands which saw the 
schooner load of ghosts pass them by the evening before, 
acknowledged that the sudden death of the ship's crew 
in this unforseen, and unexpected manner, was a per- 
fect and true anti-type, and providential solution, of the 
vessel full of apparitions that they all saw the evening 
before. The next day all the boats of the Spanish ship 
came up from the bay with the dead bodies, the writer 
saw the corpses of those Spanish sailors laying on the 
slips at the city of New York the next day. Thus aged 
shipmate we shall pass by this singular phenomenon of 
the schooner sailing without the propelling power of the 
wind, peopled with spirits, and the almost simultane- 
ous death of near all the people of a large Spanish ship, 

D 



26 



we leave this testimony to the world at large, but more 
especially to our Atheist and other skeptical gentlemen 
of this profound age of wisdom and worldly knowledge. 

And having sailed by, and lost sight of our cargo of 
spirits, we shall return to the case and experience of 
Onesimus ; he sailed with his refugee captain till about 
the last of October, 1783, and the season for fishing 
being nearly over, and his master wishing to sell his ves- 
sel, as he had with the rest of his brethren belonging to 
the refugee society, to depart to the promised land of 
Nova Scotia, therefore he laid up his vessel for sale, in 
one of the docks on the East river, somewhere near the 
old fly-market; at the end, or head of the dock, a rela- 
tion of his kept a boarding-house ; his captain ordered 
him to stay on board the vessel and take care of the 
same, till his return, as he was going on Long Island to 
see his people, and the boy was to get his meals at his 
friend's boarding-house, and when he returned he should 
receive all his wages. Now the lad Onesimus, had let 
all his wages lay in his captain's hands with a view of 
buying him some warm clothes for the ensuing winter, 
which was now fast approaching, and having waited near 
double the time he had fixed on to be gone, he inquired 
of his friend what part of Long Island his people lived 
at, and being informed by him it was about eight miles 
from Brooklyn, the boy went in search of his master, 
and found the house, but the person who came to the 
door denied the captain's being there, and did not know 
where he was gone, nor when he would be home ; 
when he began to see his three guineas and a half, as 
sailors say, "was shivering in the wind, or looked squally 
to windward he came back to the city the same day, 
and informed his friend that he was not to be found at 
the house of his family, who put him off with some eva- 
sive answer, not at this length of time very distinctly 
remembered, his friend, we believe, had married the 
captain's sister, and appeared to be up to the whole 
scheme of depriving Onesimus of his three and a half 
guineas, and advised him to get a birth in some other 
vessel, as winter was fast approaching ; and what to do 
he at the time did not know, and at the same time the 



27 



boy was so extremely ignorant of common law, and in- 
deed of men and things in general, or of the legal claims 
of poor sailors respecting their wages, or the boy might 
have attached his master's vessel for his wages, and as 
there were several refugee captains at the boarding- 
house of his sister's husband, that had to leave New 
York early in November, and most of them were bound 
to the land of promise, as we have already observed, 
viz., Nova Scotia ; the captain's brother-in-law soon 
obtained a birth for Onesimus, and as all was hurry with 
the refugees to get off with the British army, who were 
about to evacuate the city of New York before the last 
of November, according to the articles of the treaty of 
peace of 1783 ; so he shipped on board of a Virginia 
built sloop owned by one of these refugee captains, at 
six Spanish dollars per month, and having no warm 
garments for the cold climate of Nova Scotia, when he 
thought of the two pieces of gold he had about three 
months before deposited under a brick in the fire-place 
of his old masters cabin, when he went and obtained 
the keys of the vessel from his brother-in-law, and took 
up the brick and found the two pieces of gold in safe 
keeping, Onesimus then went to one of the slop-shops, 
and bought two woollen garments for one of the gold 
pieces, and the other he sewed fast in some part of his 
new garment, that he might not lose the same. 

Here indulge us for a moment to pause, and seriously 
reflect on this over-ruling providence that permitted 
at the loss of some person's interest these pieces of gold 
by what we call accident, to place themselves in his 
way, the same over-ruling providence equally foresaw, 
that his captain intended to wrong the poor runaway 
boy out of all his three-and-a-half months wages, which 
leads the writer to exclaim with Paul when viewing his 
wonderful providence, for the time being, in his reject- 
ing the Jews on account of their rejecting his son, and 
of his calling the Gentile world to be his church, in their 
stead. But the same Almighty power which governs 
the vast empire of worlds, and of the nations of the 
earth, has kindly informed us through the special agency 
of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, that the smallest oc- t 



28 



currences of our unprofitable and unworthy persons, 
even that of the two pieces of gold in the case of this 
ignorant boy, are equally the objects of his care ; then 
we are justified in borrowing the apostle's language in 
his case, and exclaim, " 0, the depth of the riches both 
of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearcha- 
ble are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." 
And it came to pass, that in a few days after he had 
shipped with his new master, that his sloop was ready 
to sail with a full cargo of refugees with their families 
and their goods, and other eifects, and as the hour glass 
of time has nearly run its sand through — and our 
watch on deck is called, we will turn into our birth, 
and when it is our watch on deck again, and when we 
have a clear sun and a gentle breeze from the writing 
quarter of the gospel heavens, we will write to our 
friend again from on board the ship Perseverance. 
New York, November, 1783. 



29 



LETTER III. 

His leaving the city of New York with some of the refugees, (a 
few days before it was evacuated by the whole of the British 
army,) and sailing for the land of Nova Scotia, and the vessel 
very near being cast away on her passage, and his conversation 
with the false doctrine of Chance, under the idea or similitude of 
a very accomplished lady, respecting a special providence in the 
concerns of the children of men, and his safe arrival in Nova 
Scotia. 

Dear Sir: 

In our last we informed you that when we felt a free 
breeze off the writing quarter of the ship Perseverance, 
we would get out the old inkhorn, and note down a few 
more of our ideas, of what transpired in this part of his 
voyage in search of the soul's immortality. 

And it came to pass, when the sloop had sailed from 
New York, on board of which Onesimus had shipped 
with a freight of passengers, all of that class of people 
called in those days refugees, that for the first two or 
three days as they ran through the Sound, that 
is the sea which divides Long Island from the main 
land, all was pleasant for the season of the year 5 but on 
the third day about the setting of the sun, the pilot, 
who was by these refugees called an old Yankee, and 
had come to New York after the peace of 1783, to get 
a birth to pilot a vessel to the land of Nova Scotia, and 
agreed with the captain and owner, for to pilot his ves- 
sel to the land of promise for a certain sum ; the old 
man like Isaac the father of Israel, was rather near 
sighted, and not being on the coast during the seven 
years war, so that he had forgot some of his old land 
marks, which sea-faring people call those objects on a 
sea coast, by which they sometimes steer their way 
through rocks, bars, shoals, and different currents, on 
a sea coast— which are more or less located in every 
part of the watery world — this pilot ran the vessel on 
a shoal about four or five leagues from the land, and 
she being a sharp Virginia built vessel, and loaded with 
her deck not more than a foot above the water, and 

D2 



30 



beating on the shoal, and the day light fast receding 
in the west, and their situation the most perilous that 
human beings could well be in, and the enraged captain 
and the rest of the refugees standing round the old 
pilot with the instruments of death in their hands, and 
imprecating the most awful oaths, that the moment the 
vessel bilged they would be revenged on the old Yankee 
pilot, by taking his life before they lost their own, 
when the salvation of all on board seemed to be almost 
impossible, from any physical power that human beings 
are in possession of, therefore if their lives were spared 
it must be brought about by some agency beyond their 
control : Thus all on board stood as it were with their 
death warrants suspended over their persons, by the 
sheriff who rides upon the pale horse whose name is 
death ; and the enraged refugees stood round the old 
man like the Philistines round Sampson at the pillows 
of the amphitheatre, so that they might feast on revenge 
as their last supper in this world, and then yield their 
bodies into the jaws of the venomous monster, death. 



31 




Figure 1. The old Pilot standing on the quarter deck between two 
refugees with axes in their hands, in order to' kill him the 
moment the sloop bilged. 

And when all hope of their lives being saved, had 
almost forsaken them, and expecting every moment to 
be their last, when that almighty being who declares he 
holds the winds in his hands, as in an instant stopped 
the blowing of the wind from off the sea, and in a short 
time the wind changed to the opposite point of the 
compass, which brought the wind off the land, when 
the undulatory sea began to lower its angry surges, so 
that the beating of the vessel became less dangerous, 
and the setting in of the flood tide about nine o'clock 
in the. evening, drifted the sloop from off the shoal, 
when they cast out the anchor and rode in safety till 
the next morning 5 when they made sail and pursued 
their voyage. 

Dear old shipmate, we think we hear the fastidious 
atheist and other free-thinking gentlemen of the age, 
saying to themselves — why all this which you relate 
respecting the salvation of the people on board your 
vessel, was nothing more nor less, than one of the flirts 
of the careless and flowing robe of lady chance in one 
of her whimsical moods, as she cast her enchanting 
and rolling eye towards the gods of nature, that was the 



32 



cause of her ladyship's unintentionally changing the 
wind to the opposite quarter of the heavens; these are 
the views which all carnal and unregenerated persons, 
take of the ways, the wisdom, and providences of God, 
who view with their skeptical wisdom, under the per- 
sonification of a lady, exhibiting, and out-shining in 
every expression of elegance and gracefulness of form, 
and at the same time her physical qualities richly 
adorned with every other ornamental accomplishment 
which her mental faculties were able to sustain, pre- 
sents to the view of an ungodly and unbelieving world 
the false doctrine of chance, more imposing than the 
charms of Egypt's beauteous queen did to some of the 
chief commanders of ancient Rome. Therefore, leaving 
lady chance and her vain admirers to enjoy their own 
view, relating to a special providence ; so that after calm- 
ly viewing the perilous situation of Onesimus, the poor 
old Yankee pilot, and all their refugee companions, on 
board that evening, and their temporal salvation being 
the sudden change of the element, which is not, nor 
never shall be, under the power of human agency or 
control, leads us to believe it to be as much an act of 
the special agency of providence, as those which are 
recorded in the gospel that caused the astonished ma- 
riners to exclaim, what manner of man is this, that even 
the physical laws of nature obey him, or in the scripture 
phraseology, S6 The winds and sea obey him." Now 
the only difference in the two cases, is this, that in the 
case of the ancient disciples, they were permitted to 
see their Lord and Master with their natural vision, 
and touch a few of the small wires connected with the 
wheels, and other apparatus of a special providence in 
their behalf, as John exclaims, 66 that which our hands 
have handled, of the word of life." 

But in the case of Onesimus, and the poor old Yankee 
pilot, and vessel load of refugees, the curtains of the 
scenery was lowered down, so that they did not see with 
an eye of sense, so clearly as it may be seen by an eye 
of faith ; all this providential apparatus in all its mys- 
terious and wonderful operation in the temporal salva- 
tion of those ungodly sinners, who were for a few days 



33 



like the ancient Philistines, willing to admit that some 
greater agency than their own, saved them that night 
from a watery grave. But in a few days, like the un- 
circumcised enemies of God's ancient Israel, when the 
danger of their persons was a little passed over, they 
soon began to conclude, perhaps it was only a chance 
that saved them. And it came to pass the next morn- 
ing they weighed the anchor, and made sail, and pur- 
sued their voyage, and in about two weeks passage, 
after encountering high winds and stormy weather, 
they reached the mouth of St. John's river, and soon 
got up to the town : and as the hour glass of their watch 
on deck is again run out, and the mate's watch is called : 
we will bid you good night. 

Town of St. Johns, Bay of Fandy, in the British 
province of Nova Scotia, North America. 



34 



LETTER IV. 

His travelling from Annapolis, over a deep snow, and through a 
lonely wilderness, and the distress and poverty the Lord permit- 
ted to come upon him, in order one day to bring him to the foot 
of his cross. 

Dear Sir : 

Our last scratch, from the log-book of the ship Per- 
severance, brought the boy Onesimus to the land which 
the royal munificence of George the third King of Great 
Britain, had in reversion to divide among his loyal sub - 
jects the refugees of North America, and a cold and 
solitary land it was in that season of the year, and a 
few days after their arrival, they sailed for Annapolis 
river, which was blockaded with ice, and in a few days 
the captain had all his goods in the vessel taken up to 
his house in the town of Annapolis, and then informed 
Onesimus and another young man of about twenty years 
of age, that as the navigation was closed for the season, 
he could not keep them under wages during the winter, 
but as they came from New York in his vessel, they 
with the rest of the liege subjects of his royal master, 
were entitled to a share of the king's munificence, 
which he provided for the children of promise, as soon 
as the ensuing spring opened he would put them on 
wages again ; the boy Onesimus would have accepted 
the offer if it had not been that the young man 
advised him not to accept the captain's offer, and in 
the evening of the same day he persuaded him to go with 
him to the city of Halifax — at which place he said 
there was not the least doubt but that both of them 
would obtain a birth, so the next day they went up to 
the captain's house, when he paid them all the wages 
that was due them, which did not exceed twelve dol- 
lars, these small sums with the other gold piece that 
Onesimus had saved out of the two pieces he found in 
the ballast of the sloop in York bay, increased their 
funds to about twenty dollars 5 the day after, they having 
obtained some raw hide and made themselves snow 
shoes, they set off for Halifax, over a snow from two to 



35 



three feet deep, and the weather being intensely cold, 
and in about four days they arrived at the town of 
Windsor, about one hundred miles on their way to 
Halifax, and put up at an inn in the town, and as soon 
as supper was over, the boy being much fatigued with 
walking in the snow shoes, went to rest, leaving his 
friend, as he supposed, in some desultory conversation, 
to spend the evening with the host. The next morning 
his shipmate informed him, that he went to see an old 
acquaintance of his, who was farmer in or near the 
town, who wanted a hand for the winter, and that he 
had accepted the birth ; this information went to the 
heart of this poor boy, in a strange land, when too late 
he discovered the false friendship of his shipmate, in 
persuading him to go with him to Halifax, and that it 
was only his company and money that he wanted on 
the road, as far as the town of Windsor. And after 
paying for his entertainment at this inn, he found that 
he had but two dollars remaining out of the twenty they 
started with, when he summoned up all the resolution 
that his physical and mental powers were master of, and 
then obtained of his host all the directions he could for 
the^est of the road to Halifax, which his landlord in- 
formed him was about forty miles, over a deep platform 
of snow, and through woods, with houses in some part 
of the road from four to six miles apart, and if he push- 
ed a-head he could reach the half-way inn before the 
day closed, as they were at the shortest. (And being, 
the writer believes, between the forty-fourth, and for- 
ty-fifth degrees of north latitude.) and after obtaining 
all the road marks he could of his host, he set off by 
himself through as it appeared to him a vast howling 
wilderness, the roaring, and hollow sound of the wind 
through the dismantled branches of the trees as he 
scudded along over a glib railway of snow, appeared 
to him the first day of his lonely pilgrimage, as if he 
was almost beyond the habitations of men, thus he made 
" all sail/' as sailors say, that day, so as to get into 
harbour before night, and every now and then ex- 
periencing a subsultory moving of his heart for fear the 
bears and wolves would rush out of the howling wilder- 



36 



ness and destroy him. About the close of the day he 
reached the half-way house,, his stay at this inn, took 
one of his two last dollars. The next morning he set 
sail for the port of Halifax, and the farm houses not 
being so far apart on the latter half of the road, he did 
not experience those oscillatory vibrations of fear near 
so powerful as the day before, although he experienced 
the passion of fear of another kind, the clouds of pover- 
ty were fast gathering blackness in his remaining funds, 
and he going into a strange place, and every person 
a stranger to him ; and knowing it would take his last 
dollar to pay his way that night, drew the tears from 
his eyes that day, as his mind was more or less occupied 
with a sense of his condition. Thus this day wore off, 
and a little after the setting of the sun, he made the 
north end of the city of Halifax, and knocking at the 
door of the first house he came to, inquired for an inn 
in the town,. and was directed to one adjoining the Navy- 
yard; the night was intensely cold, and his supper 
was poor, and they had put him in a cold loft to sleep, 
and the bed and the fare was not such as he found at 
the inns on the road, which was good, but the lad One- 
simus, was small of his age, and the host or his lady, 
put him among the servants in the kitchen at the second 
table. But notwithstanding this, as they no doubt view- 
ed him as a young sailor from New York, and of course 
had money to pay his way,' so that they did not forget 
to charge him a man's full price for his supper, a cold 
bed and breakfast, which took his last dollar, and after 
warming himself by the stove in the bar-room a short 
time, he set out to seek a birth or any other employ- 
ment, he first went along the wharves, and. through the 
shipping, all of which had a gloomy and wintry appear- 
ance, when he found that all shipping business was com- 
pletely embargoed for the winter season, so that neither 
men nor boys were wanted in any vessel in the harbour, 
and as he stood viewing the ice as it had collected itself 
in large bodies, round the wharves and shipping in the 
harbour, which at that time appeared to his young 
mind more like the ideas he entertained of the regions 
near the North Pole, than the winters he had experienc- 



37 



at Philadelphia ; and after sailing as poor sailors in 
their seafaring or technical language call it, up and down 
the wharves in the port of Halifax, during a great part 
of the day in search of employment, and not meeting 
with the least kind of encouragement, and hunger and 
cold at the same time presenting to his mind their gloomy 
and melancholy visage, when he now felt afresh those 
oscillatory vibrations of his almost bleeding heart to 
violently increase, and to sorrowfully experience the 
heart of a stranger ; according as it is written, (i there 
were strangers and pilgrims in the earth so was this 
poor lad, this winter in the city of Halifax — who was 
now in a strange city without a single friend or ac- 
quaintance in the place, nor one cent of money in his 
possession, and this short day fast wearing off, when the 
undulatory waves were tossing their angry surges of 
human misery against him, and almost foundering his 
clay built tabernacle ; and the dark clouds of distress 
and hunger were fast collecting a dolorous atmosphere, 
and the lowering portentous clouds were ready to open 
the windows of human wo, and pouring down their tor- 
rents of want in one impetuous storm, and sweep him 
from the face of earth ; and in this dark state of his 
mind, without a solitary idea either directly or indirect- 
ly in relation to the providence or agency of a divine 
Being, who in the least degree has any regard for the 
distress, misery, or want of his creatures in this lower 
world, worse than Egyptian darkness and the most 
dense unbelief had overshadowed his whole soul ; not- 
withstanding all the physical anguish that his mind and 
soul was passing under at the moment, or in the senten- 
tious language of the scripture, during this outward 
storm, God nor his providence never once passed 
through his mind, nor entered once into all his thoughts : 
our dear old shipmate will be so kind as to pardon our 
preaching. 

And we'll return again to the history of this gloomy 
and almost melancholy boy — so he continued his going 
up and down the wharves, till at last he saw an old 
looking schooner at one of the lower wharves of the 
city, next to the sea, and as our watchword on board 



38 

is, you remember, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
a i thou heareth the sound thereof, but can'st not tell 
from whence it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is 
every one that is born of the spirit." So when his 
watery eyes caught the old vessel, he hauled his wind 
till he got in her wake, and setting all his pedestrian 
sails, he soon overhauled the old vessel, hailed her and 
was invited on board, where he found a lad about his 
own age in charge of the schooner, unto whom he relat- 
ed his distress and other embarrassed circumstances, and 
that he came from New York with the British army to 
the Bay of Fundy, and had crossed over from the town 
of Annapolis, near 150 miles, over a deep snow to 
Halifax, and that he knew no person in the city, this 
young sailor being in the possession of a little of that 
magnanimity of soul for which sea-faring people are 
generally characterized, he invited him into the cabin, 
and got out the wooden bowl, with some cold salt meat 
and sea biscuit, on which he amply relieved the unplea- 
sant vibrations of hunger, when he invited him to tarry 
on board the vessel with him all night ; and said when 
his master, captain Little, came on board the ensuing 
day, he would speak to him in his behalf: and it came 
to pass, the next day that the captain visited the 
schooner, when the lad, who was his apprentice, in- 
formed his master of the strange boy from New York, 
and after an interview between the captain and Onesi- 
mus, it was agreed upon between them that he should 
stay on board the vessel to take care of her during the 
winter for his meat, and his apprentice should go home 
to the captain's house, to do whatsoever he wanted done 
about the same, and go to school in the evenings. 

This was no doubt one of the motives on the part of 
the apprentice, which caused him to take so interested 
a part in the behalf of this young prodigal ; but what 
ever are the motives by which an agent acts, yet it 
does not alter nor weaken the force and truth of our 
watchword, (nor make it the less true,) " The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou heareth the sound 
thereof, &c. : and that salvation is of the Lord." 
Therefore our old shipmate will clearly see, that to all 



39 



outward appearance, under a dark cloud of the myste- 
rious ways and overruling providence of God, so that 
by this little arrangement this wandering prodigal was 
preserved from perishing with hunger and cold, through 
this winter ; and it came to pass, that by this time most 
of his clothes were getting old, and as there was some 
old sail-cloth in the vessel, when he by the use of twine 
and a sail -needle, patched up his old clothes in the best 
manner he was capable of, and also made himself a pair 
of trousers out of some of the old-sails. 

Thus our old friend will plainly discover that his new 
master who under an allwise and gracious providence, put 
Onesimus into one of the lowest classes in his school, 
under president Providence, even a class of poverty 
and disgrace in his outward condition in this world, 
like ancient Israel among the pots in Egypt. 

But we must be under the unpleasant necessity to 
inform you that all his poverty and outward wretched- 
ness, never once brought either the powder, wisdom, nor 
any other of the attributes of God once to his mind ; 
and here indulge us to ask is it not wonderful that the 
scriptures, the sacred oracles of heaven which are so 
simple and plain, and at the same time so naturally sub- 
blime, speaks the language of the hearts and consciences 
of all mankind, and that the book called the Bible, 
should be so generally despised by the great body of the 
children of men: but if we take the wisdom and know- 
ledge which our cabin of understanding contains, we 
shall never be able to give a better solution of the per- 
verse spirit and character, as well as the unhappy con- 
dition of mankind, in all those things which relate to 
the interest and salvation of their indestructible souls, 
than our admiral in white, the Lord Jesus Christ, has 
noted it down in a certain log-book written some 1800 
years ago, in these very remarkable words : To wit, 
that light has came into our world, and that men love 
the sable and deleterious empire of darkness rather than 
the light of the Gospel of the Son of God. We think 
we hear you exclaim, why this unnatural, this unrea- 
sonable choice, by the children of men : the high ad- 



40 



miral in white. who is holy, harmless, undefined, 
separate from sinners, and made higher than the 
heavens." gives us the answer, through the speaking 
trumpet of his. Gospel, to wit. because our deeds are 
evil : so that in the simple view of the writer, all the 
wise gentlemen of this age. with all the taper lights of 
natural philosophy if they ascend with Babylon's vain 
prince, to the sides of the north in their inflated imagi- 
nations after a trne and correct solution from bow till 
dooms- day. they will never he able to give a wiser nor 
better solution than the captain of our salvation has 
given of the primary cause of our benighted choice : 
light has come into this sinful world, and men love 
darkness rather than the bright morning star of immor- 
tality. 

And now dear old shipmate, when we for one moment 
reflect that at last the united power and grace of God 
should ever locate its divine influence on the mind and 
heart of this young prodigal, with a mind so dark, so 
ignorant, and so alienated in his affections from the life 
of God in his soul, and that the power of divine grace, 
should at last enable him to out-ride the storms of sin 
and unbelief, and finally bring his weather beaten bark 
into the port of Zicn : and at last have his name enrolled 
among his saints on earth ; causes his soul he trusts, to 
fiow into the elements of Paul's view of the case in his 
canticle of redeeming love to Titus, in these most fe- 
licitous wards ; u but after that the loving kindness of 
the love of God our Saviour towards man appeared, not 
by works of righteousness which we have done, but ae- 
c or ding to the unmerited riches of his grace and mercy 
he hath saved as lost sinners, by the washing of regene- 
ration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; which he 
hath ished on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our 
Saviour. 

And as this short piece of history, and at the same 
time rather of a desultorious character, brings the ship 
Perseverance to the end of the year 1783 ; and indulge 
us as the weather appears to be a little squally off our 
weather quarter in the Gospel heavens, and the drops 



41 



of rain from the lowering clouds of adversity wets our 
paper, we will close the log-book till our next watch on 
deck. 

City of Halifax, province of Nova Scotia, 
British dominions ; North Jlmerica, Dec. 
30th, 1783, 



£2 



42 



LETTER V. 

What befel him in the city of Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and lus 
very near being lost at sea. 

Dear Siri 

My last scroll from the log-book of the ship Perse- 
verance left Onesimus on board an old schooner in the 
port of Halifax, where he continued during the months 
of January and February ; and when March came in 
the owner made up his mind to send the vessel to a 
place in South America called Surinam, and as captain 
Little had given him a promise that he should sail with 
him that voyage, he had been pleasing himself more or 
less through the long nights of that winter, as he was 
by himself on board the vessel, with the felicitous idea 
of seeing the warm countries where the oranges, pine- 
apples, and other fruits of the tropical regions grew : 
when about the 20th of March, the schooner was ready 
to sail. 

When the owner objected to the captain taking two 
boys with him so near of a size : when his apprentice 
claiming his priority of right, Onesimus was left on 
shore ; when all his little ephemeral happiness, that was 
floating in his mind, suddenly spread its wings and fled 
away. And as the captain was somewhat displeased at 
the owner, he told him to go and stay at his house till 
he returned, when he expected to take the command of 
a new brig which was building at a place called Pas- 
samaquoddy, and he should sail with him in the next 
vessel; Onesimus accepted captain Little's offer : under 
this new arrangement, he was raised to the office of a 
lady's kitchen servant, when she soon taught him to be 
expert in his new profession, or calling. But his mind at 
this time was so low and servile, and his physical and 
mental powers so degraded, that by this time he was 
glad to do anything for a piece of bread, and the occur- 
rences which transpired during the time he sailed un- 
der female colours, were of such a monotonous character, 
that it will not remunerate the time of the writer to 



43 



record, nor justify his making an unnecessary levy on 
our brother's patience to read. And it came to pass, 
that in the month of June, 1784, captain Little return- 
ed to the port of Halifax, from his voyage to Surinam ; 
the vessel proving so leaky, on her homeward bound 
passage, that he gave up the command of the same, be- 
lieving the vessel no longer sea-worthy ; and the brig 
building at Passamaquoddy not being launched, captain 
Little took the command of a large French built sloop, 
of about two hundred tons, and made a short voyage to 
the Bay of Fundy, and took the boy Onesimus with him ; 
when he thought to himself he w T as in his element, or 
once more on the borders of what we call an earthly 
paradise, to be at sea again after being embargoed on 
shore about six months. Thus you see that providence, 
put this young prodigal down in one of the lowest 
classes in his school — we should scarcely have believed 
that president Providence had been quite so severe with 
the young cadets, before he advanced them to the office 
of midshipman on board his gospel armament, had it 
not been that perchance, or rather to speak the truth 
before the mast of the ship Perseverance, in overhaul- 
ing fche old log-book and other papers of the ship, that 
we laid our hands on an old sea letter, which by some 
of the officers of the gospel armament, is said to have 
been written by captain Paul ; although there is some 
considerable discrepancy in the minds of many of the 
midshipmen, and other of the minor officers of the gos- 
pel navy in this our day, about whose fingers steered 
or guided the goose quill, when this sea letter was 
wrote : be that as it may, we still believe the letter was 
sent to the old gospel armament, by the authority of 
Jesus Christ the high admiral : in this sea letter, we 
discovered it to be the old uniformed practice when 
providence had a special work, for any of his young 
gospel midshipmen to perform or any daring service for 
them to execute, that he first drilled them by causing 
them to pass through the different grades of poverty 
and disgrace in this world : and as near as we are able 
to decypher the words of the letter, its vocabulary run 
in this style, when he was referring to the prophets in 



44 



the first rudiments of their education ; viz., they wan- 
dered about in sheep-skins, and goat-skins, being desti- 
tute, afflicted, tormented, of whom this sinful world was 
not worthy ; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, 
and in dens and caves of the earth : thus you see that 
this poor boy, made some small advances, though at the 
same time at a humble distance towards some of the old 
sailors on board the old prophetical armament ; viz., in 
his wandering over the earth, and sometimes destitute 
of the means to get a piece of bread, and if he was not 
clothed in sheep and goat-skins, yet his clothes were 
made of old canvass, or the old sails of the vessel in 
which he stayed ; but we think we hear vibrating from 
the cabin of the ship Perseverance, your voice, avast 
with your so much preaching, and keep your eye on the 
compass of the ship, and don't let her luff up in the 
wind's eye, and then fall off the wind so often ; old 
shipmate your admonition we receive as correct. This 
short voyage run off about a month or six weeks, and 
no special occurrence transpired, that would remune- 
rate the scribe to record, or your precious time to read. 
After this, the sloop sailed for the coal mines, to a place 
eastward of Halifax, called Cape Britain, and what in 
those days were called the king's mines, and brought a 
load of coal to the city of Halifax ; this voyage ran off 
the lead-line of time about six weeks, and was mostly of 
the same monotonous character with the former voyage, 
and when the coal had been discharged at Halifax. 

And it came to pass that the owner of the vessel and 
captain Little, put their heads together to cozen George 
the third out of a little of his revenue, when they 
cleared the sloop out of Halifax, to go to the west part 
of Nova Scotia for a load of fire-wood ; when the cap- 
tain sailed his vessel a few leagues to west of the light 
house 7 and then shaped his course to the eastward, and 
sailed to the king's mines ; and bought a load of coal, 
and had it invoiced for the city of Halifax, and when 
he left Cape Britain, he crossed over the sea about for- 
ty or fifty leagues, to a small island at the west end of 
Newfoundland, by the name of St. Peters ; which at 
that time was in the possession of the French govern- 



45 



ment, who kept a small garrison of soldiers in the island, 
over which was located a little grandee, by the honora- 
ry title of governor ; when it appeared that the special 
object the French government had in view in being at 
so great an expense to possess a little rock of a few 
miles extent, appeared to be to foster their fishing in- 
terest, in those seas, as they brought their fish on shore, 
in order to dry them, either for a foreign or home mar- 
ket : and as this island was a barren rock, they had no 
fuel but what was brought them from the British do- 
minions of Nova Scotia ; and when this slpop with her 
illicit commerce on board was on her passage between 
Cape Britain and the island of St. Peters, the vessel 
was overtaken with a violent storm, which to all human 
appearance was every moment likely to send the sloop 
and all on board with their unlawful commerce to the 
bottom of the ocean, (which is yet very problematical, 
both to naturalists, and also to navigators, whether our 
globe is a dense body of matter, or its primary consti- 
tuent parts consists of water, if this is the case, it will 
certainly relieve the mosaic account of the flood from 
those objections w T hich natural philosophy so often 
arrays against the truth which Moses has given of 
there being a sufficient quantity of water in our globe, 
to cover all the high hills and mountains on the outer 
surface of the earth with water; it is very likely, as the 
earth or land, does scarcely cover more than one third 
of the superficial surface of our globe, and if our views 
are in any way plausible, or in the smallest degree 
tangible, then how very easy it was for the natural 
power or laws of gravity, by being charged with a little 
more density, to have caused the land to sink in the 
mighty waters ; thus we see the constitution of our 
world possesses more ways than one under the influence 
of a divine agency, to justify the mosaic history of 
drownding the old world of ungodly sinners ; so you 
see we are again falling off the point of the compass on 
board the ship Perseverance.) The sea ran mountaine- 
ously high, and the raging and foaming of the waves, 
were both majestically and awfully grand to behold ; and 
about midway across, there were several rolling waves 



46 



that came after the vessel which seemed like distant 
mountains, which presented to this heavy loaded sloop 
a perpendicular wall in height ahove our mast head, and 
ai the same time their curling and foaming heads like 
snow capped mountains, when they came near the sloop 
gave every indication that they would break on the 
vessel, in which case it would have buried the sloop 
under a mountain of water, from under which it would 
have been physically impossible for her ever to rise. 
But shipmate, there was a flying Jonah on board, which 
in a few subsequent years, had the word of the Lord to 
deliver to a sinful world ; therefore he that girded the 
everlasting hills together, bound by his power also the 
raging watery mountains together, till it had passed the 
vessel by ; captain Little who had followed the sea from 
his youth up, declared that he had never seen so high 
and so awful a wave of the sea in all his life. Which 
brings to our mind, that highly coloured, but natural 
description of the royal saint in a storm at sea, 
in which the Psalmist is proving the doctrine of a 
special providence over the physical as well as the 
moral world, who seems to have been entirely disre- 
gardless of all the scientific speculations of modern phi- 
losophy ; when David says that Israel's God command- 
eth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the 
waves thereof, they mount up to the heavens, they go 
down again to the depths, their soul is melted, because 
of trouble. What a living and natural comment was 
this storm, of the language of Israel's royal saint ; but 
again we are apprehensive that you are ready to call to 
the writer to make more sail, and mind his helm and 
compass a little better, and not let his fore and main- 
topsails shiver in the wind's eye so often, which deadens 
her way, and also exposes her to danger, should the 
ship be suddenly struck with a flaw of wind from the 
opposite quarter of the heavens ; and that is not all the 
evil, for if you go on with your luffing and falling off 
the wind so often, you will never cross the line of time, 
nor bring the ship Perseverance safe into the port of 
immortality. 

Therefore don't bear away the ship any more, after 



47 



mother Carey's chickens, these are a kind of sea or 
waterfowl, that chiefly hover about the tropical latitu- 
des, and are said by sailors to warn them of their im- 
pending danger when a storm at sea is near at hand. 
But see that you mind your helm and compass a little, 
better than you have lately done, and let our modern 
star gazers spread their ephemeral wings, and as pilot 
Isaiah calls to them through the spirit of his God, to go 
on a little longer with their vain folly, and warm them- 
selves with the sparks of their own kindling. 

Therefore, let the foolish birds alone, till the hurri- 
cane of wrath, which their appearance in the modern 
latitudes of the gospel seas, are portentous of, and is 
very likely suddenly to overtake them, when there will 
be no ark of safety for them to flee unto. Dear ship- 
mate we believe that you are for once, very correct, so we 
shall leave those tropical birds of vain philosophical 
folly to soar a little longer over the warm seas of tangi- 
ble and sensual felicity. 

And it came to pass, after the storm was over that 
the sloop arrived safe at the little island of St. Peters, 
where they soon began to discharge the cargo of coal. 
But we remark here that through a very singular cir- 
cumstance, captain Little made this a very profitable 
voyage to himself; viz., the French chaldron not being 
but about half the capacity of the English, he got double 
measure allowed him for his load of coal, or else it were 
owing to the ignorance and cupidity of the French ex- 
cise officers ; so that captain Little obtained from them 
a bill for double the number of chaldron his bill of 
lading called for at the king's mines at Cape Britain, 
which when presented to the little governor, or his 
officers, was paid for in French crowns. 

Our dear old shipmate, will be so kind as to indulge 
us to make a few remarks on the careless administra- 
tions of despotic governments, for you know that our 
upper rigging is a little wild, if not rather fanciful ; 
when we shall just observe, what almost countless mil- 
lions of public money is more or less, by most all des- 
potic governments, exacted from the sweat and blood of 
their subjects, and then through the ignorance, weak- 



48 



ness and cupidity of their public agents, are all thrown 
away without the least benefit to the nation at large ; 
but as your last admonition reminds us of our bad steer- 
age, we will sail the ship Perseverance by them at the 
present time, and when their voyage of life is past, and 
they come with their log-books and other ship's papers 
into the high court of admiralty, where all will be spread 
open on the cloud capped mountains of eternity, as we 
have read in an old log-book found on board an old 
prisonship at anchor in the Isle of Patmos, under the 
command of captain John, in these significant words : 
(" And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
God : and the books was opened, and another book was 
opened, which is the book of life : and the dead were 
judged out of those things which were written in the 
books according to their works. And the sea gave up 
the dead which were in it , and death and hell deliver- 
ed up the dead which were in them : and they were 
judged every man according to their works : Revela- 
tions xx. 12-13.) But to return to the boy Onesimus, 
captain Little and the sloop and the load of coal, at the 
Isle of St. Peters ; the money for the load of coal came 
on board the vessel in two bags of about twelve hundred 
French crowns each, when the sloop sailed for an inlet 
twenty or thirty leagues to the west of Halifax, and 
then took in from sixty to seventy cords of fire-wood, 
which the owner had contracted for to be ready for the 
sloop, as a kind of a cover slut, as poor sailor's ladies 
are in the habit of sometimes saying when they are a 
little displeased with each other, so this load of wood 
was designed as a cover, to cozen the custom-house of- 
ficers of George the third, out of a little of the king's 
revenue, at the port of Halifax ; at which city they ar- 
rived late in November, 1784, and anchored a little 
below the town, about nine o'clock in the evening, 
when captain Little ordered the boat to be lowered into 
the water ; with two of the hands, and the boy Onesi- 
mus, himself and the two bags of French crowns, and 
went up to the city ; and when they came to the wharf 
the captain took the two bags of money with the boy 
out of the boat, and sent her back to the vessel. 



49 



And when the boat had left the wharf, the captain 
took up one of the bags of money and carried it up to 
the owner's house, leaving the other bag on the wharf 
in the care of the boy, and bid him take special care of 
it till his return ; in about half an hour the captain re- 
turned to the wharf, and ordered the boy to follow him 
with the other bag of 1200 crowns to his house, which 
was located at some distance in an opposite part of the 
town. Dear old shipmate, you will grant that this was 
a very lucrative six weeks voyage for captain Little, 
besides his wages ; and as every thing respecting this 
voyage, had to be kept quiet, the merchant nor the 
excise officers of the port of Halifax, were never the 
wiser of this smuggling business we believe to this day ; 
and as all the parties concerned have ere this day gone 
the way of all earth, with the exception of the boy 
Onesimus, it will do no harm to relate the circumstance. 

The coasting trade being over, in consequence of the 
setting in of the winter, the vessel was safely moored at 
the wharf till the following spring ; and as we perceive 
the sand of time is fast running through the hour-glass 
of life, it is time to throw the log, and call the mate's 
watch, and turn into rest, and when the writing breeze 
whistles through some of the upper rigging of our mind, 
we will try and spin a few more fathoms of our dolorous 
and desultorious spun-yarn, and forward the same by 
the first opportunity. 

City of Halifax ', in the British dominions > province 
of jYova Scotia, JVbrth America, December 31st, 
1784. 



F 



50 



LETTER VI. 

What befel him in the city of Halifax, during the months of Janu- 
ary and February of 1785 ; and his very near being lost in the 
Bay of Fundy, and his arrival in the West Indies. 

Bear Sir: 

We promised in our last sea letter, that if a special 
desultorious inclination, located itself in our main-top, 
(viz., our mind,) or whistled through the upper rigging 
of our ship Perseverance, that we would try to spin a 
little more colloquial spun-yarn, or in other words, note 
down a few of our sailor-like ideas from the log-book of 
the ship Perseverance ; and as we perceive this fore- 
noon there is a clear sky, and it being our watch on 
deck, and as the sea this morning does not run so high, 
as to give the ship too great an undulatory motion, we 
think it advisable to get out the old inkhorn, and trim 
our goose quill, in order to tease your patience with more 
of our views respecting the voyage of Onesimus, in 
search of that wonderful country, that has never yet 
been fully explored, and its seas never been entirely 
circumnavigated by the wisdom of this dying world ; 
which lays beyond the verge of time. 

Our last sea letter you no doubt remember, was dated 
Halifax, December 31, 1784. The bag of 1200 French 
crowns made plenty of good living during the remainder 
of this winter at captain Little's house, and the boy 
Onesimus received some new clothes, and now and then 
a little pocket money, which he also took care of for 
to buy hi ni some articles of clothing, for he-had no pre- 
dilection to go with the sailors to the inns, and at the 
same time he was too young in life to experience those 
subsultory laws of our physical nature, to which we ar- 
rive at a certain period of our existence. And it came 
to pass, that about the middle of March, 1785, the sloop 
was sent to a place called Passamaquoddy, to take in a 
load of lumber for the West India market, and when 
they had sailed almost in sight of the harbour, and lay 
off about the middle of the mouth of the Bay of Fundy 



51 



almost becalmed, the sky clear, the receding sun in 
the west, and in a few hours after the daylight had fol- 
lowed the course of the luminous orb of day, when the 
horizon was overspread with night's sable empire, when 
a most dreadful storm came down on the bay, accom - 
panied with sleet and snow, which caused them to lower 
and take in all the sails ; and let the vessel, as sailors 
call it, scud under bare poles ; when the smallest rope 
belonging to the sloop was the size of a man's wrist with 
sleet and snow, which freezing to the sails, ropes and 
spars, made the vessel appear like a glass chandelier, 
and made it impossible for the sailors to do any thing 
with the vessel, her deck at the same time being one 
glare of ice ; so that no person could either stand or 
walk the deck ; when the storm continued to increase 
in violence, and the cold in its strength throughout the 
night: and all that the hands could do to save them- 
selves and the vessel was to keep the stove in the cabin 
as hot as they possibly could, in order to relieve the 
man at the helm every five or ten minutes, so as to keep 
him from perishing by the severity of the weather. 

The sloop was not only in imminent danger of foun- 
dering every moment, but was also in great danger of 
being driven on a lee-shore, as there was a strong cur- 
rent of 4 or 5 miles an hour, either setting in or out of 
the bay, and had it been flood-tide the vessel would 
have drifted up the bay so far that according to all the 
physical laws of nature she would have been driven on 
the lee- shore. And the first dash of the vessel against 
that iron bound coast in such a storm , would have broken 
her in a thousand pieces. The captain talked very 
seriously to all the people as they stood like a small 
flock of poor hapless creatures around the stove in the 
cabin, acknowledging to them, that nothing short of an 
over-ruling providence, could save them that awful 
night. And- after the storm had passed over the ves- 
sel, the captain found himself about twenty leagues off 
the south west point of Nova Scotia, and clear of any 
land ; and as the weather became somewhat mild, the 
people went to work and cleared as much of the ice and 
snow from the decks, sails and rigging as they possibly 



52 



could, and made sail ; and in about three days made the 
harbour of Passamaquoddy, at which place the vessel 
took in a load of lumber, and then sailed for the West 
Indies, and in about eighteen or twenty days she arrived 
at an Island, which in those days was called Santa Cruz, 
which at that time belonged to the Danish government. 
And there for the first time, Onesimus saw the tropical 
regions where the oranges, pine-apples and other fruits 
of those warm latitudes grew. And after their arrival 
the sloop was soon discharged of her cargo of lumber, 
which was more or less covered with ice as they took it 
out of the vessel's hold, (but like the wise gentlemen of 
this age, it soon disappeared in the presence of a tro- 
pical sun ; just so will all the wisdom of this vain and 
sinful world disappear from the insufferable splendour 
and refulgent glory of the sun of righteousness ; when 
the affrighted ghosts of Deists, Atheists, and all the 
other skeptical gentlemen of the free- thinking schools, 
shall with everlasting fear and dismay call on rocks and 
mountains, to hide them from the insupportable glare of 
the countenance of the Son of God.) And soon after 
the lumber was discharged, the vessel began to receive 
her return cargo, which chiefly consisted of Santa Cruz 
sugar ; no occurrence or incident took place for about 
two weeks that is worthy to record. But one which 
happened a few days previous to the vessels sailing, 
which was as follows : One day as the sloop was receiv- 
ing her return cargo, captain Little was invited to dine 
on shore by the owner of the plantation from which the 
cargo of sugar came ; but before the captain went on 
shore, he called the boy Onesimus into the cabin, and 
gave him the keys of the liquors, with orders to give the 
mate, and the rest of the people, their usual quantity of 
spirits through the day, and cook and prepare their 
meals, and then clean up the cabin, as he t expected some 
company on board in the evening ; and when all the 
captain's orders had been executed with fidelity, about 
4 o'clock in the afternoon, a singular whim suddenly 
came into his head, in order to display to the mate and 
the rest of the hands on board, the confidence the cap- 
tain had placed in him ; he went into the cabin* and got 



53 



one of the captain's books, and came up on the after 
deck of the vessel, and seated himself under the awn- 
ing of the same, with a book in his hand ; when he did 
not long enjoy his felicitous chair of assumed ease, be- 
fore it elicited the attention of the hands who with the 
mate were at work hoisting in the hogsheads of sugar, 
when one or more of the sailors observed to the mate, 
that if they occupied his station, as the second officer 
of the vessel, they would soon make that young fellow 
lay down his book, and come and put his hands to the 
fall and help to hoist in the sugar ; and as the mate, 
rather viewed the lad with a jealous eye, in consequence 
of his being entrusted with the keys of the liquor, it 
being an article that the mate had a very strong predi- 
lection for, so much so, that the captain had to keep 
the same under the charge of the blacksmith's daughter ; 
and it came to pass that the pendulus vibrations of jeal- 
ousy in the mate's mind being propelled to a higher 
degree of velocity than usual, by the remarks and advice 
of the sailors, so that the mate put his pedestrian ship 
in motion, and laid hold of a rope and came after One- 
simus, to coerce him to obey his orders and come to 
work, when he still refused, and started towards the 
bow of the sloop, and perceiving the mate in his wake 
and so close hauled after him, that he must either 
strike his colours and surrender, or spring over- board ; 
when in the height of his passion he chose the latter, 
and over the bow of the sloop he went, and made for 
the shore. The sailors seeing their counsel growing 
into seriousness, went to the stern of the vessel, and got 
up the boat and came after him, and persuaded him to 
come on board, and they would let him alone, and not 
coerce him to work ; so he went into the boat and re- 
turned on board the vessel again. 

Dear old shipmate, what a most striking evidence of 
the truth of the history which Moses has given the 
world of the fall of Adam — and through his transgres- 
sion, as Paul most clearly and logically proves, to his 
brethren in the church of Rome ; his language is so very 
singular, and 'also so specially adapted to the dark 
mind ; and vile passions of the heart of this young sin- 



54 



ner, that we cannot refrain from placing it in your 
view. 

(Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon 
all men, for that all have sinned. Romans, v. 12.) 
And his daring conduct on this occasion justifies the de- 
claration of the prophet, can the Ethiopian change his 
skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do 
good, that are accustomed to do evil. Jeremiah, xiii. 
23. 



Figure 1. The Mate with a rope in his hand in pursuit of the Boy. 
Figure 2. The young sailor springing into the sea from the Mate. 
Figure 3. A sailor hauling up the boat to take the wicked sinner out 
of the water. 

Figure 4. The shark taking the sailor's dinner out of the net. 

And it came to pass, that in the evening Onesimus 
having given the hands and mate their supper, and 
when it was over and the people were all in the fore- 
cabin, spending the evening in some sailor-like or de- 
sultorious conversation ; when their attention was sud- 
denly excited by an unusual undulatory noise in the sea 
alongside the vessel, which instantly brought all-hands 
on deck, for to ascertain the cause that gave the alarm ; 
after they had looked round the vessel in every direc- 
tion, and every thing on the surface of the water ap- 
peared as silent as death, as we poor sailors sometimes 
say, for the want of more elegant language to express 
our views on things, in order to communicate our 
thoughts to our wise people on shore: and after staying 
on the vessel's deck for some time, they all retired below 
again, wondering at that which caused the alarm, and 
sailor-like in imitation of the children of Israel in the 
days of Moses, began to prophecy ; or if our old friend 
thinks the author is not fully justified in the use of such 



56 



strong language, we leave the longitude of scripture 
phraseology, and bear down on the vocabulary of hea- 
then mythology and say, each man was trying to prog- 
nosticate the cause of the noisy phenomena in the watery 
element; and after long discussion, and much sailor-like 
elocution by these sons of old ocean, had been brought to 
converge on the watery alarm, and no one for a long time 
possessed the wisdom of a Solomon to call for the sword 
of common sense, to cut the illegitimate child of nature 
asunder in order to ascertain which of the two elements 
were its natural mother, either sea or earth. And it cams 
to pass, that Solomon-like the oldest tar on board rose up, 
and calling for his sword of common sense, asked the 
boy Onesimus whether he had put any salt meat in the 
net that day, and being by him answered in the affir- 
mative, he went on deck and drew the net out of the 
water, and behold all the salt beef and pork was taken 
out of the same, although the net was made of plaited 
rope as large as the finger of a man, and as the people 
on shore, are not all of them acquainted with the design 
of putting their salt meat into the sea-water for about 
24 hours before they cook the same, it is done in order 
to abstract the salt as much as possible, out of the meat 
before they boil the same ; by this all on board the ves- 
sel were fully convinced as to the true character of that 
wonderful agent who caused the alarm and had made 
such a deleterious w T ar on their provision for the next 
day : now his honour's name was a shark, that had been 
lying under the vessel all day, waiting for the sable 
empire of night to give him an opportunity to take his 
prey ; and in his official capacity the Nimrod, or great 
and mighty autocrat of the watery world, but we see 
one trait in his character, which has a wonderful adapta- 
tion to the strong colouring our Lord placed in the 
view of Nicodemus, that a world of falling and dying 
sinners loved darkness rather than light, because with 
the shark, their deeds are evil. And as it is late in 
the evening we shall retire to rest, and should we see 
the light of a new born day we will write you again on 
this gloomy subject of immortality. Onesimus. 
Island of Santa Cruz, West Indies, 
May 20th, 1785. 



57 



LETTER VII. 

His return from the West Indies to Halifax, and a voyage to the 
Bay of Fundy, with a few remarks on the character of the officers 
who commanded a company of British soldiers, on board the vessel 
Onesimns sailed in ; and a few remarks on the great height the tide 
ebbs and flows at the head of the Bay of Fundy, in the province 
of Nova Scotia, North America. 

Bear Sir: 

Shortly after the shark affair had passed away the 
sloop sailed for Halifax, you will indulge us to remark 
that there was a small oversight in our last letter ; to 
wit, that after the mate and hands of the vessel, had all 
retired below, and the novelty of the shark running off 
with the meat was a little subsided ; when the mate and 
sailors gave the boy a moral lecture, for the rashness of 
his conduct, in springing into the sea ; telling him that 
the shark was under the sloop's bottom, at the time he 
went overboard, and that nothing but the noise made 
by the hands on deck prevented the shark from making 
his supper off him instead of the salt meat ; when his 
conscience for the moment severely condemned him for 
his rash conduct. 

And it came to pass, that in a few days after their 
sailing from the Island of Santa Cruz, that the sailors 
on deck saw a large log or a piece of old timber, which 
by its appearance had been floating on the bosom of old 
ocean many years, and when the captain came on deck, 
and saw it, he called to the sailors to get out their hooks 
and lines, in order for a mess of fresh fish for a dinner ; 
and as soon as the vessel came near the floating timber, 
the fish left the same and came round the vessel, when 
in less than hour they caught as many fish as they well 
knew what to do with, and among the rest were five 
dolphins ; these beautiful creatures when first taken out 
of the sea, or their native element, exhibit a pleasing 
variety of the most delightful shades of colour, and are 
constantly changing their hues, till all their ephemeral 
beauty sinks and is for ever lost in the shades of death ; 



58 



which is certainly a very striking figure of all the 
ephemeral glory of this changing world ; but as we have 
already in some sort expatiated on that idea, it is not 
wisdom to go over the same ground again ; and a few 
days after taking the fish, captain Little called the boy 
Onesimus into the cabin, and told him when they ar- 
rived at Halifax, if he would consent to bind himself 
till he was twenty-one years of age, he would teach him 
navigation, so that he might one day rise above the level 
of a common seaman ; and as the boy's mind was fully 
bent on a sea-faring life, while at the same time, a life 
on shore appeared to him, so dull, so monotonous, at 
that period of his life, that he most willingly accepted 
the captain's offer ; and as he was to have been bound 
when they arrived at Halifax, which took place about 
the 20th of June, 1785, 

And it came to pass, that when they arrived the 
merchant or owner having a freight in readiness to go 
in a great hurry to a place called Windsor, which lays 
up the Bay of Fundy, the same place where the young 
sailor forsook him in the winter of 1783, as noticed in 
our third letter. 

And being so hurried in discharging the cargo of 
sugar, and taking in the freight for Windsor, the bind- 
ing was put off by mutual consent until the sloop made 
this short voyage ; one principal part of her freight 
consisted of a party of British soldiers, going from 
Halifax to Windsor, to relieve a company who were 
stationed at that place, they were commanded by two 
officers ; young Onesimus saw nothing imposing nor very 
interesting in these gentlemen, either in their words, 
or acts ; their conversation was mostly of a desultorious 
shade of character, which often caused them to fill their 
sails, on which were all manner of fourfooted beasts and 
fowls of the air, when they soon got into the low and 
dense atmosphere of the prime beef, cheese and ex- 
cellent porter, and other good things of old England ; 
and each officer having two servants to wait on them, 
so that a great part of their time was occupied on ship- 
board, in giving directions to them how to cook this, 
that and the other for their different meals ; when 



59 



Onesimus saw none of those traits of character that were 
so remarkably striking in the youthful mind of Alexan- 
der at the age of sixteen years ; it is said, or written of 
him, that this young officer when in company with the 
Persian and other foreign ambassadors, who came on 
business of state to his father's court, that this youngster 
did not spend his time in inquiring after the good fare 
which the different countries those gentlemen represent- 
ed possessed, in order to entertain foreign gentlemen 
who came either on public or private business, there 
appeared something more manly, noble, and also mag- 
nanimous in this youth, than wasting his time in making 
a God of his appetite, in inquiring after the sweet meats 
of a foreign land ; but this young lad, as an undesigned 
type of one of the youthful traits in our Lord's boyhood, 
who so wonderfully astonished the profound doctors of 
the Jewish theology in the temple with his understand- 
ing, questions and answers ; just so did this young 
scion of old Nimrod interrupt often times the desultori- 
ous conversation of those foreign gentlemen on minor 
subjects, by inquiring of the Persian and other foreign 
ambassadors, the geographical extent of their master's 
states and kingdoms, with the natural productions of 
the soil, and their princes' physical and military re- 
sources in time of war, and the character and condition 
of the shortest and best roads to their princes' empires 
and kingdoms. Now shipmate it is either written or 
said, that this youngster's interrogations drew out from 
the minds of those foreigners this reflecting piece of 
conversation, when they said to each other, our master 
has got the silver and the gold ; but this young scion 
of our ancient father Nimrod, had a mind whose acme 
like a cloud capped mountain, rises far above all our 
master minds put together. But casting our eye at the 
fore-topsail of the ship Perseverance, we discover it is 
shivering in the wind's eye, we will give the ship the 
wind a few points free, in order to fill her sails and pass 
by these red-coats, young Alexander, and the Persian 
ambassadors. 

And it came to pass after they arrived at Windsor, 
and landed the two officers and their men, there appear- 



60 



ed nothing at this place which merits the scratch of the 
goose quill, except the wonderful flowing and ebbing 
of the tide in the Bay of Fundy ; so that at the town of 
Windsor, a 100 t gun ship could sail up to the town at 
high water, and at low water, the bed of the river is 
quite bare ; and at the head of this bay it is said, that 
the rise and fall of an ordinary or common tide, was from 
50 to 60 feet perpendicular. But as the writer has 
never studied natural philosophy, he is of course entire- 
ly unacquainted, viz., scientifically, with the physical 
laws which rule or govern the natural world, so as to 
define the cause of this watery phenomenon ; so you see 
dear old shipmate, that we are under the imperious neces- 
sity of leaving the same with ten thousand mysterioifs 
things and occurrences, both in the natural and moral 
world; viz , both as to the manner and modes of our 
own existence, as also the existence of the whole race 
of beings, which constitute the inhabitants of this mun- 
dane orb, w T hich we no more can comprehend, than we can 
the nature of God and the modes of his existence ; as 
our Lord wisely remarked to the Jewish Rabbi, " If I 
have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how 
then shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things ?" 
Therefore let the whole posse of Rabbies of the law of 
Moses, and the whole host of the doctors of the chris- 
tian theology put their wisdom together respecting the 
world of nature of which they form so small a constituent 
part ; then how much more must these assumed self- 
created paragons, who assume the appellative of masters 
in Israel, and the most profound doctors of the gospel 
of the Son of God, if they are so much in the dark re- 
specting the mysteries of nature, how much more so, 
must they be in the dark, except they are taught of 
God respecting heavenly things, or the blowing of the 
wind of the spirit of God, or the divine influence of the 
Holy Ghost on the mind and heart of every new born 
soul, with the ebbings and flowings of the waters of the 
grace of God ; and the wind of the spirit in the won- 
derful work of the salvation of one sinner that is truly 
born of God. But as we are again led to cast our eye 
at the trim of the sails of the ship Perseverance, we see 



61 



her fore-topsail shivering in the wind, which we have 
already promised to guard against except prevented by 
physical and moral causes. Therefore about the first 
of September, 1785, the sloop returned to Halifax 5 
when captain Little promised the boy Onesimus that 
the indentures should be executed in a few days ; the 
next day as he was standing on the deck of the vessel, 
as she lay at the end of the wharf, a thought instantane- 
ously rushed into his mind, that before he should bind 
himself an apprentice to captain Little, he would go 
back to Philadelphia and see whether his father was 
still living, this idea was so powerfully impressed on his 
mind, that it caused him to pause for a few moments, 
w T hen his soul suddenly experienced a strong desire to 
see his father and family once more, if they were in the 
land of the living. And what makes it the more re- 
markable is because it was the first time since the day 
he left his father's house that he experienced a solitary 
wish to return home, notwithstanding all the poverty 
and dangers he had passed through, and as these 
thoughts were passing through his mind, he cast his 
eye up the wharf, and saw a person coming towards the 
vessel, who was inquiring for a lad to go as a cabin boy 
in a small brig that was bound to Philadelphia, and as 
soon as he heard the man pronounce the words he said to 
himself that he would go, the person told him the brig 
was all ready, with her sails loose at the end of the wharf, 
and there was not a moment of time to be lost, as the 
captain of the brig was unexpectedly put to a non-plus, 
in consequence that the former cabin boy was that 
morning suddenly taken so very ill, so that he had to be 
taken on shore ; and that the brig was now waiting to 
obtain a boy to fill his place. When Onesimus desired 
the person to wait a few minutes, and went down into 
the cabin, and put his few clothes in a small canvas bag, 
and threw it over his shoulder, and followed the person 
to the brig forthwith ; and just as he got to the end of 
the wharf where the sloop lay, captain Little met him 
and asked Onesimus what was the matter, when he 
answered the captain, that he was going to Philadelphia 
to see his father 5 when he was somewhat surprised, 

G 



62 



as he had, heretofore, passed for a fatherless boy from 
New York ; captain Little observed that he was sorry 
since things about his apprenticeship .had gone so far 
that he was now so suddenly going to leave him, he said 
he wished he might do well go where he would, when 
Onesimus bid captain Little farewell, and saw him no 
more. 

And he went with the person to the brig, and as soon 
as they went on board the brig, they cast off the fast 
and set sail ; and in less than an hour from the time that 
it was his full determination to bind himself to captain 
Little, and follow a sea- faring life all his days, did this 
sinful prodigal by the wind of the spirit and over-ruling 
providence of the most high God which bloweth where 
it listeth, change his mind, and what is more remarka- 
ble, that it required the simultaneous operations of men 
and things to work together with the cogitations of this 
youngster's mind ; so that in less than an hour, the 
brig passed by the city of Halifax, and Onesimus saw 
it no more to this day (March 1839). But you remem- 
ber, that the motto of the ship Perseverance was at 
her departure from this vain and sinful world, the wind 
as we have just said, bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof ; and it was very squally in 
the providential heavens for about sixty minutes : and 
now indulge us to say we almost experience with the 
sailors when the shark ran off with their dinner in the 
harbour of Santa Cruz, the spirit of preaching and 
prophesying, as we lay off the coast of a special provi- 
dence. But as we see the sand of time is fast descend- 
ing through the hour-glass, we will defer the discussion 
of this mighty subject, till we go into the drawing-room 
of lady chance. And when it is our watch on deck 
again after that our mind has taken a little rest in sleep, 
we will inform you of our table-talk with that wonder- 
ful lady Miss Chance. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 

City of Halifax, province of Nova Scotia. 
British dominions ; land of North America 
September 30th, 1783. 



No 1. The city of Halifax, in the province of Nova Scotia. 

No. 2. The fort on a hill which commanded the city, and the flag- 
staff, with its different colours to show the character of the ves- 
sels that were approaching the harbour. 

No. 3. The brig in which Onesimus was leaving Halifax in. 

No. 4. The guard ship laying at anchor off the city of Halifax. 



LETTER VIII. 

His returning home like the prodigal to his father's house near the 
city of Philadelphia, and his conversation with lady chance, about 
the doctrine of a special providence. 

Dear Sir: 

We shall endeavour to bear in mind your very sea- 
sonable admonition to keep the ship Perseverance as 
near the wind as possible, by bracing the yards and 
trimming her sails, so that she may lay her course if 
possible, in a straight line to the world of spirits, and 
country of immortality: but being sensible that you sir, 
have some knowledge of the sea-faring business and 
have yourself sailed half round our mundane globe, in 
which case it places us before you in a more pleasing 
situation, like it did Paul before a Roman prince ; viz., 
knowing you to be expert in matters and things relating 



64 



to old ocean ; now you know, sir, that current, head 
winds, shoals, islands, and promontories, very often 
cause the mariner to go out of a straight course, and as 
we have got the ship Perseverance into a whirlpool of 
strange and conflicting currents, and as the wind from 
the gospel heavens bloweth where it listeth, and we 
hear the sound thereof in the upper rigging of our 
minds, you will no doubt permit us to put another hand 
to the helm, while we shall take a seat on the after hen- 
coop of the ship, as the most retired place on board, to 
communicate and interchange our views and ideas re- 
ciprocally together ; and keeping our sea vocabulary* 
always at your service, and while the hour-glass is not 
more than half run its sand through the same, we will 
try and spin a few fathoms of rather a desultorious con- 
versation with you respecting that very handsome, 
graceful, and highly accomplished lady, madame chance, 
who they say has for these last three hundred years, 
since science, and modern philosophy has made such 
wonderful discoveries in the natural world, assumed to 
herself the appelative of the queen of nature^ and de- 
clares that her family, and all her progenitors are the 
eternal laws of nature : and as her ladyship revolves 
round the higher circles in life, and this queen of 
nature they say, has captivated almost all our wise, well 
bred, and well educated people ; her pleasing manners, 
and alluring graces, renders her company so very de- 
lightful, and at the same time so fascinating, that when 
the doctors, philosophers, deists, and atheists, once are 
admitted to one of her levees, or are introduced into her 
wise company, it requires more than stoical virtue and 
self denial to absent, or withdraw themselves from her 
presence, so that lady chance by her silken cords leads 
her admirers captive — fast chained to her chariot 
wheels; such as kings, princes, statesmen, lawyers, 
physicians, and the profound philosopher, so that those 
and millions of others, in the second ranks of life, who 
all are more or less desirous to be in her felicitous com- 
pany, the harmony of her words moves on like the 
motion of the spheres, as she sings her love notes% 
which far exceed the sky-lark of old England, and as 



65 



it respects the variety of her anthems, she sings to the 
Gods of inert matter, she outdoes the mocking-birds of 
North America ; when the sweet cadence and melodi- 
ous accents of her voice gently undulates the ambient 
air that encircles our globe, so that the fragrancy of her 
breath, like the zephyrs from off the spicy islands in 
the eastern seas, gives a delightful sensation to the ol- 
factory nerves of the mariners as they sail by those spicy 
islands, just so the zephyrs from oiF these new discover- 
ed islands, in the vast sea of modern philosophy, gives 
a delightful fragrance to the breath of this wonderful 
lady (viz., the doctrine of chance). But dear shipmate, 
what a ruthless, cruel and savage monster is death to 
cut asunder with his broad sabre, the conjugal ties of 
these loving and felicitous people. We are justified in 
exclaiming, O ! ye fates, what tongue can tell, or what 
pen, can such barbarities record, of the wanton slaught- 
ers of death's ruthless sword, in parting these loving 
ones asunder. 

But we see it is time to give the ship a little more 
press of sail, and leave the lady and her admirers astern, 
and now in our sailor-like fancy we have brought all 
our ideas to converge in our exordium, on one point of 
our compass, or test of a special providence ; permit 
us to open the same under three short heads, so that 
from this part of Onesimus' experience, we shall en- 
deavour to prove by the simultaneous actings of several 
special things, in the course of one fleeting hour, by 
which you may be able to see, that if one of the spokes 
in this small wheel of providence had been wanting, 
then the whole chain would have most assuredly parted 
asunder, and the salvation of that young ungodly sinner 
miscarried for ever ; so that in the language of a poet, 
we may justly exclaim, on w T hat a slender thread hangs 
everlasting things ; and indeed it would appear to our 
weak vision here below, that the great author of a wise 
and over-ruling providence has in his infinite wisdom, 
suspended us on a single hair, or a sudden turn of 
thought, or the passing impression of a new idea, the 
salvation of countless millions of poor sinners in this 
probationary state. Here indulge us to remark, that 



66 



we believe, the review of which when we arrive on the 
heavenly shores will create those springs (promised by 
our Lord) of living waters, to which he will lead his 
blood bought church, unto when he will fill the ce- 
lestial fountains, which are most beautifully arranged 
along the rich pasture grounds, which are located in 
the champaign country that lays in the fore ground of 
the throne of God ; so that when the redeemed and 
blood washed soul, shall cast the eye of grateful reflec- 
tion over ten thousand temptations, and dangers, both 
seen and unseen; that an allwise and guardian provi- 
dence has led it through, will no doubt greatly enlarge 
the joys of its paradisical, its glorified state, and will en- 
tirely remove all monotonous sensations from the mind 
and soul of the believer forever : so that the spirit of 
the righteous after it has ambulated from one part of 
the starry heavens, or the vast dominion and empire of 
glory to another, and has seen an infinite number of the 
most singular curiosities which are in the museum of 
glory, so that it may possibly be that the wonders of 
creation, might in process of time, perhaps become 
monotonous, and in a great measure lose it former no- 
velty. Our old shipmate will admit that our views are 
both rational, and tangible from all our past experience 
in this our mundane state ; which leads us further to 
admire the glorious genius, and wisdom in the scheme 
of the gospel, which shall forever present to each re- 
deemed sinner's view, a deep and humiliating sense of 
the low and degraded condition that sin, unbelief and 
ignorance has reduced us unto in this lower world, with 
an abiding sense, also, of the many hair breadth es- 
capes we have had personally, more or less of losing our 
lives before we were brought to the saving knowledge 
of the truth ; we say that a lively sense of these things 
will forever remove all dulness and insensibility from 
the spirit in its glorified state, and will no doubt cause 
the church with Israel's royal bard, who when on earth 
perched himself on the branches of the tallest cedars of 
Zion ; so that not the least doubt remains in our minds 
that David's Lord and Master, of whom he sung so 



67 

Sweetly here below, with his sonorous and variegated 
notes, has given him the royal honour to lead that 
special part of divine worship in the church in her tri- 
umphant state, where with those excursive, and discur- 
sive powers of mind which David possessed here 
below, shall then receive some new oscillatory energies 
from the springs of living waters, who will there, with 
his celestial harp and golden lyre, followed by patri- 
archs, prophets, apostles and the lesser grades of the 
blood washed congregation, that have sailed through 
the gospel seas here below, will then sing more loud, 
more sweet, and more melodious, the royal saint's re- 
markable canticle of praise, and humble gratitude to 
the God of his spiritual Israel ; to wit, I will sing of 
mercy and of judgment unto thee O Lord will I sing; 
followed with this chorus, who hath remembered us in 
our low estate, for his mercy endureth forever. And 
dear old shipmate, shall this young sinner, Onesimus, 
ever forget to sing his share of this humble canticle of 
praise, and strike his lyre in a new song of praise, that 
he at last should be favoured with the high privilege 
with the beloved disciple John, of exclaiming, Behold, 
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, 
that we should be called the s >ns of God. Then God 
forbid, that he should ever forget that all important 
hour of his existence, when in the forenoon about the 
tenth of September, 1785 9 standing on the deck of a 
vessel lying at the end of a wharf in the city of- Halifax, 
province of Nova Scotia, with a mind as dark as hell 
itself ; viz., in things respecting the nature, attributes, 
work and true character of the God, which the scrip- 
tures reveal ; and at that all important crisis with a full 
determination to bind himself to the sea-faring business, 
and that in a moment of time, so powerful a revolution 
should take place in his mind. 

And our dear old shipmate, no doubt will logically 
grant, that it required that while this thought was act- 
ing on his mind, the simultaneous agency of several 
persons and things to strike the iron while it was hot,, 
in order to weld this link of the chain of a special pro- 



68 



vidence together ; now you see that the first stroke of 
this tilt-hammer, on this small hair link in this young 
sinner's case, was the sudden change of his mind while 
standing on the deck of the sloop, the second stroke 
was the person who at that instant of time was coming 
down the wharf, enquiring for a lad to go as a cabin 
boy in a brig that was ready to sail immediately for 
the city of Philadelphia ; the third stroke of the ham- 
mer of providence was, that the former boy belonging 
to the vessel was at that instant of time taken so very 
ill, that he had to be taken on shore. Now when we 
look at this small link that connects the vast chain, to 
us of a complicated, but yet a special providence to- 
gether ; notwithstanding all the fastidious risibility of 
lady chance, and her admiring gallants, who are con- 
tinually casting their rolling eyes on her beauty, and 
with the admirers of the scarlet queen, who the apostle 
John saw at the Use of Patmos, and heard the kings, 
and princes, and other great wise and rich men of the 
earth, admire her beauty, riches, honour and glory ; 
when by the incense of their fealty to her queenship, 
which causes the loving queen to reciprocate to their 
canticle of praise, by graciously responsing, I set as a 
queen forever^ and my felicitous tbrone, and regal 
power shall never be overcast, nor shaded by the dark 
clouds of widowhood, and sorrow shall never enter my 
palace gates : so you see this vain queen and all our 
modern grandees of the skeptical schools fully and most 
cordially reciprocate their views to each other, and 
disregard all the judgments of heaven, against an un- 
godly world ; but we shall say no more at this time 
about the doctrine of chance. 

And as there was nothing took place in Onesimus' 
passage to the city of Philadelphia, which merits an 
entry into the log-book of the Perseverance ; about the 
last of September, 1785, he arrived safe at his father's 
house, and found him and his family all well, after an 
absence of two years and four months separation, during 
which time neither party had heard a single word from 
each other; and as the sand of time is fast descending 
through the hour-glass, we will take the old inkhora 



69 



and log-book below, and when we have a clear mental 
sky, we shall note down a few more ideas in the old 
log-book of the ship, and send them by the first oppor- 
tunity. 

Onesimus. 

City of Philadelphia ? land of North America, 
September 30th, 1785. 



70 



LETTER IX. 

Onesimus goes again to sea, with a short history of his voyage to 
see the great Tyre of our modern limes ; viz., the city of Lon- 
don, when he was very near being lost going out of the capes of 
the Delaware. 

Dear Sir: 

Our last epistolary communication to you brought 
this young prodigal home to his father's house, when it 
came to pass, that in a few weeks the novelty of his re- 
turn soon subsided, and he again experienced those 
subsultory sensauons, like a fish when it is first taken 
out of its natural element , when he wished to be on 
old ocean again, as persons and things on shore soon 
begin to wear a monotonous aspect, and it appeared so 
unlike the changing scenery of a sea-faring life, which 
is more or less presenting to the vision of sailors some 
new object. When he informed his father, that he 
could not content himself on land, and must go to sea 
again, when in a few days, his father obtained a birth 
for him as a boy before the mast, in the ship Harmony 
of the port of Philadelphia, commended by one captain 
Villet, and bound to the city of London. And she 
sailed about the twentieth of November, 1785 ; when 
he again viewed himself as happy, to be once more on 
the watery element ; and when the ship had but just 
cleared the capes of the Delaware, and it being after 
sunset, she was suddenly overtaken with a violent squall 
of wind, which had very near overset her ; when all- 
hands were called from below to take in the sails, when 
Onesimus and another lad went up to take in the fore- 
top-gallant-sail, and as the sea was rough and the action 
of the vessel was rather wild, it made the boys sea-sick, 
which instantly deprived them of their wonted strength, 
which rendered them unable to take in the sail, and the 
wind filling the sail, and raising it like a balloon above 
the head of Onesimus, and he being at the same time 
on the lee-yardarm, so that he dare not let go his hold 
of the toppenlift ; and in this way he hung with his 
strength almost gone, in consequence of the deadly 
sickness at his stomach. 



71 




No. 1. The ship Harmony struck with a squall of wind going out 
of the capes of the river Delaware. 

No. 2. Onesimus hanging suspended on the lee fore-topgallant yard- 
arm of the ship. 

No. 3. The sailors taking in the sails of the ship. 

The other lad being on the windward yard-arm of 
the ship, got into the mast, and went down on decks, 
leaving his young shipmate in his perilous situation un- 
able to get into the mast of the ship ; and she at the 
same time having a heavy careen ; and there he hung, 
until all the other sails were taken in that was necessa- 
ry for the safety of the ship ; and the hands seeing the 
fore-topgallant-sail still flying in- the wind, when two of 
the sailors came up, and got Onesimus into the mast: 
and took in the sails, and the prodigal by some means 
got down on deck, but so faint and exhausted that he 
had to go below. 

But how he was saved from his perilous situation he 
is unable to this day distinctly to explain ; but we still 
believe it to be by the agency, of a greater power than 
the arm of that delicate lady whose family escutcheon 
is chance : but in the case of this young prodigal we are 
led to exclaim with Jonah, " salvation is of the Lord.'* 
His escape from a watery grave that evening, made 



72 



some serious impression on his mind for a few days; but 
like the nine leprous men in Luke's gospel, he soon for- 
got this singular interposition of providence, and just 
like the leprous men, "he also experienced no kind of a 
predilection in his mind or heart at that time, to return 
and give the glory to God. After these things the ship 
pursued her voyage, and a stormy passage she had, and 
all the sailors were wet every day and night for near 
three weeks, with a northwest gale of wind near all the 
way, and the sea ran mountainously high ; and after 
their leaving the capes of the Delaware, in about twen- 
ty-four days the ship made the land's end of old En- 
gland, and in about six days after this the ship Harmony 
got up the river Thames, and moored opposite a place 
called in those days Irongate, near the Tower of Lon- 
don about the last of December, 1785. 

Onesimus we must 'observe was with many others in 
the pursuit of some object under the sun, to make him- 
self what he thought happy ; but he with countless mil- 
lions of the sons of guilty Adam, was at that time a 
stranger to the straight gate, and the narrow way that 
leads to true and lasting fidelity. And as the sand of 
the year is run out, we shall close the log-book of the 
ship Perseverance, and when the wind of the spirit is 
a few points free, and the mental sky is somewhat serene, 
we have a few more items to communicate to you about 
what befel Onesimus while prosecuting his voyage to 
the country of immortality, and write by the first mail. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylix. 

London, December 31 st, 1785. 



£1 



LETTER X. 

Contains a short history of his views of mankind, while he was on 
ship-board in the river Thames, just below London bridge, where 
he saw so much of the depravity of human nature, that were the 
Bible as mute as a church mouse, on the doctrine of the fall of 
man, the thing itself is so self-evident, that if men would let com- 
mon sense but regain its empire in the human understanding, all 
further argument on the subject would be superfluous. 

Dear Sir: 

Our last epistolary spun-yarn left this young prodi- 
gal in the city of London, the modern Tyre of the old 
world ; and it came to pass, that during the first two 
months of the year 1786, that many new scenes of vice, 
were continually presenting themselves to his view, by 
all the people belonging to the ship, and lads the sons 
of merchants, who went out in the vessel to get some 
little insight and experience into sea-faring business, 
and as their friends had supplied them with money, 
these lads with the mates and crew of the ship, almost 
every evening brought on board those tangible objects 
which are more or less calculated to give excitement to 
certain subsultory passions and physical laws, which in 
the antecedent days of our youth we are more or less 
strangers to; now these objects swarm on the river 
Thames, which passes this Tyre of the European world, 
and as the frogs crept up into the palaces of old Egypt 
in the days of Moses, just so these poor unhappy crea- 
tures by thousands crept on board the shipping, which 
are always in the port of this great city ; what mind, 
dear old shipmate, which believes in the purity and 
love which the gospel inspires, but must give an inward 
sigh, and heave a piteous groan at the awful degrada- 
tion, in which sin has involved these beautiful creatures, 
that shew forth such wisdom and design, both in their 
physical and mental powers ; and that they should be so 
debased by sin ; therefore for arguments sake, we will 
give our Bible to the moles and bats, by way of a com- 
promise to the doctrine of infidelity, and then without 



74 



the Bible, the fallen and sinful state of mankind is as 
clear and self-evident, as the noon-day sun. But to 
return to our subject, these deleterious frogs, as we have 
already observed, were invited on board by all the 
ship's crew, with the exception of the subject of our 
biography ; so that those characters never excited any 
oscilatory impulse in his mind towards them, but the 
more he saw in the ship that winter, of the vice refer- 
red to, the more he was disgusted with the debasement 
of our fallen nature ; so that by an over-ruling and re- 
straining providence, he was enabled to pass by the 
house which the wisest of the Hebrew sages has in vivid 
colours painted on the sign which is in front of her 
palace gate, her paths leads to the house of destruction, 
and her ways to the chambers of death. But we do not 
hold him up as a paragon of virtue in his being kept 
from this vice during this winter, but it was certainly 
owing to some secret cause arising from what we would 
characterize preventing grace, which gave him a 
natural disgust to a particular vice, and leads us once 
more to observe, that in giving this part of the history 
of this young ungodly sinner, we do not wish to raise 
him on the stilts of pharisaical pride, for it is very evi- 
dent, that Onesimus did not act in this case from any 
respect or regard either to the laws or holiness of the 
divine character, as he does not distinctly remember 
that the idea of offending the divine being ever once 
entered his benighted mind ; but to return, about the 
first of March, captain Villet took the prodigal to his 
boarding-house on Tower hill, to bring a small box on 
board the ship, and as he was passing over Tower-hill, 
with the box on his shoulder^ he saw a person ina sable 
garment with a few people collected round him, Onesi- 
mus said to himself that he would sheer up alongside and 
hear what this gloomy-looking fellow had to say for 
himself, and after listening a few minutes, when he 
thought to himself that, that melancholy-looking fellow's 
music was too dull for him to be listening to, when he 
hauled his pedestrian ship up into the wind's eye, and 
then shaped his course towards Irongate, when at that 
instant the captain came up, and bid him hasten on 



75 



board with the package, and at the same time giving 
him a mariner's curse, for stopping to listen to every 
babbler he saw in the streets, when the captain observ- 
ed to a gentlemen in his company, that the young lad had 
the gospel on his shoulder, which he never had had in 
his heart ; it was a small package of pocket bibles for 
some person in Philadelphia, which drew from captain 
Villet those pertinent remarks ; but the gentlemen with 
equal truth and propriety, might have applied his sally 
of wit to his own case, as the language he used in com- 
manding Onesimus to hasten on board, equally proved 
that the spirit and grace of the gospel had no possession 
of his heart at that time, any more than the boy he 
cursed ; but we here remark, that the weakness of sin- 
ful and fallen man is such, that we condemn others for that 
which we are guilty of ourselves. 

And in a few days ofter this, the ship having receiv- 
ed her return cargo, about the loth of March, 1786, 
dropped down the river Thames, to a small town called 
Gravesend, some where about twenty miles below 
London, at which place the ship was to receive on 
board one William Bingham Esq., his lady, two young 
daughters, and four male, and four female servants, and 
also a physician ; for whose accommodation Mr. Bing- 
ham engaged the whole cabin, and the state-rooms of 
the ship ; and at this place the ship took in the sea- 
stores for this rich, and in those days, a highly distin- 
guished American family ; the stores in part consisted 
of all kinds of poultry which are generally taken to sea, 
and also sheep, hogs, and a cow for her milk, and also 
liquors of all descriptions, with many other articles, 
which the captain thought necessary to give entertain- 
ment to his cabin passengers. And the ship being all 
ready, and the grandees all on board, she weighed her 
anchor, and sailed for Philadephia. 

Oxesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Mavlin. 

Gravesend) on the river Thames, Old 
England, March 21st, 1785. 



76 



LETTER XI. 

A short history of the ship Harmony, commanded by captain Villet, 
on her passage from London to Philadelphia ; and when about 
half passage, the ship was nearly dismasted. 

Dear Sir : 

Our last left Onesimus at a place on the river Thames 
named Gravesend, with the ship's anchor weighed and 
all ready for sailing, on the 22d instant she dropped 
down the rest of the river,, and made sail for America. 
And for about two weeks of the passage things went on 
without any occurrence to mar the pleasure, comfort 
and accommodation of all the cabin passengers, with 
the exception of a little sea-sickness, with some of the 
ladies for two or three days ; and as they were in the 
full enjoyment of the monotonous rounds of good eating 
and drinking,(but indulge us in this place to remark, 
that these wise and rich passengers were insensible as 
the brutes that perish, that they were under any moral 
obligation to the great author of all our mercies, and 
although the power and grandeur of the majesty of 
God is so imposingly displayed on the mighty ocean, 
when the little ark called a ship is in the midst thereof, 
so that we are almost ready to conclude that a rational 
and intelligent being could not refrain from exclaiming, 
how great and marvellous are thy w T orks, Lord, God of 
hosts ; who would not fear thee, and worship at thy 
footstool here on earth; and then with David the royal 
saint, in profound humility exclaim, Lord what is man, 
that thou should even notice him?) But- we return to 
our history of the passage, the winds were a little 
variable but mostly favourable, so that in about fourteen 
days, the ship made half her passage from London to 
Philadelphia ; when on the morning of the sixth of 
April, 1786, and the captain's watch as it was called, 
the second mate discovered a strange sail on the ship's 
starboard quarter, when the lad Onesimus was sent to 
inform captain Villet of the same, who soon made his 



77 



appearance on deck, and when he perceived the stran- 
ger rather gained on his ship, although the stranger 
was only sailing under his courses, and reefed topsails ; 
captain Villet ordered Onesimus and another lad to go 
aloft and loose and set the main- topgallant- sails, the 
wind was not more than one or two points free, and af- 
ter the sun rose, (as we poor ignorant and unphiloso- 
phical sailors say, with the poor illiterate captain of the 
Lord's host, has said once before us, which has caused 
our modern philosophers, deists and atheists, to extend, 
or dilate their risible muscles, so as to produce a high 
pressure of the foolish steam of their laughter at the old 
Hebrew's commander of the Lord's host, for the want 
of a perfect knowledge of modern astronomy on his 
tongue, when he commanded the sun and moon to stand 
still ; dear old shipmate, suffer us to express ourselves 
by way of condolence, what a great pity the mighty 
God of Jacob, did not postpone his greatest of all pro- 
digies, or miracles, until the prolific womb of time had 
given birth to an army of these paragons of modern 
wisdom.) 

And the sails were set, the wind increased in strength 
and hauled more ahead, so that the ship lay her 
course as sailors say, almost in the wind's eye, which 
caused the ship Harmony under a heavy pressure of 
sail to labour hard, in a short head sea which soon pro- 
duced a wild or crazy actio.i in the ship, and at the 
same time straining her masts and rigging. And after 
straining the ship under a heavy press of sail for about 
an hour, during which time the lad Onesimus was by 
the captain sent to the steward, for several glasses of 
gin-sling, an article the captain when at sea was rather 
partial to, but more especially in stormy weather, as it 
helped to pass away that rather tardy and slow creep- 
ing jade called time; this article, viz., the gin-sling, 
soon gave an oscillatory motion to his blood, which soon 
flew into the wheels of his imagination, and made them 
fly round with the greater velocity, so that the captain 
saw not the danger the ship and masts were in ; the 
boatswain and the experienced crew of the ship became 
seriously alarmed for the safety of the ship, and prayed 



78 



the chief mate to go and inform of her danger ; which 
he did : but the reply was, there is no cause of alarm, 
followed with a command to Onesimus, to bring him 
another small glass ; and just as he had received the 
same, a heavy head sea struck the ship, and away went 
the foremast by the board, taking with it the main-top- 
mast close by the cap with all the sails as they were 
set, into the sea, and leaving the ship a complete wreck 
in a moment of time. This sudden shock instantly 
brought all the male passengers on deck, and excited 
an alarming sensation in the mind of the chief lady and 
her four maids, who came out of their state-rooms as far 
as the cabin stairs, to ascertain- the cause of so great an 
excitement throughout the ship ; and at the time of this 
disaster, the strange ship had got a considerable dis- 
tance ahead of the Harmony, which when her- captain 
saw that she was dismasted, he put his ship about, and 
came to her assistance, and kindly tendered to captain 
Villet all the aid in his power, and to stay by his ship, 
so that if she was in any danger he would take the pas- 
sengers and ci'ew on board his own ship ; captain Villet 
requested th stranger to stay a short time with him, 
and then ordered the carpenter to examine the pumps, 
and finding that the hull of the vessel was perfectly 
sound, and having a spare topmast or two on board, he 
thanked the stranger for his kind attention to him and 
all on board, and informed him that his ship was sea- 
worthy, and that he had everything on board to refit 
himself : when the stranger bid him farewell and wish- 
ed him safe into port ; the strange sail proved to be a 
copper bottomed ship belonging to Virginia. 



79 




No. 1. The ship Harmony as she lay dismasted. 
No. 2. The Virginia ship which came to her relief. 
No. 3. The poor cow that was thrown overboard* swimming after 
the ship. 

After this the carpenter with the seamen went ta 
work day and night, and in three or four days they got 
an old topmast lashed to the stump of the foremast, and 
made as much head sail on the ship as they could with 
the means they possessed ; and the mizenmast was left 
entire : and while the ship lay without sail she rolled so 
hard, that the poor cow became so chafed that they 
threw her overboard alive, as they did not wish to dis- 
tress the tender sensibilities of the chief lady on board, 
in killing the cow ; the poor animal followed the ship a 
long time by swimming, till at last she fell asleep in 
death and sunk in a watery grave. 

The jury mast being finished they made sail on the 
ship, but very seldom could propel her through the 
water, more than from three to four miles an hour, 
which of course, made all the people on ship-board, 
wear rather a dull aspect. But as captain Yillet in 
order to give every facility to the arrangement and 
satisfactory accommodation of his cabin table, he engag- 



80 



ed a coloured person for his steward ; but he had one 
fault, to wit, that he was simple enough to be a believer 
of the doctrine of the Bible; so the outward piety of 
this descendant of Ham, soon elicited the attention of all 
the cabin passengers, but more especially the chief lady 
of the cabin ; who would very often with her harmoni- 
ous tongue, create a gentle breeze, and on the little 
rolling waves which her ephemeral breath would raise, 
were seen like the flying fish of old ocean ; such grace- 
ful and pertinent inuendos as these, our steward is so 
over righteous that he will make saints of us all, if we 
are not on our guard ; and in many other witty and per- 
tinent inuendos, did this wise lady let fly her female 
artillery, at this sable devotee to the altar of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ; so that this poor coloured steward at 
times scarcely knew what he was doing, which of course 
caused some depreciation in the arrangement and en- 
tertainment of the cabin table, which soon elicited and 
brought into actual service, a company of little com- 
plaints, from the pendulous tongue of this fair lady ; 
which she caused gently to vibrate on the drum of the 
captain's ear ; to wit, that the steward did not give that 
satisfaction which he had in the former part of the pas- 
sage, and as a matter of course, his religion and small 
Bible, had to be summoned before the bar of her lady- 
ship's delicate appetite, and then brought in guilty, in 
being accessary in this mysterious defalcation ; and as 
the captain was more or less wearied with the lady's 
importunities forom day to day, he sent for Onesimus, 
knowing that he had sailed out of Nova Scotia in small 
vessels, and expected he had some little experience in 
cooking and cabin business, and told him that he wish- 
ed him fo go into the cabin and help the steward to get 
things in a little better order; when he was well pleased 
with the oiTer, knowing that he should get better fare 
in the cabin than before the mast, as the crew of the 
ship had to be a little restricted in their provision and 
water, as they could not tell how long the voyage would 
last. The next morning Onesimus took fine flour and 
butter, and made small biscuit and baked them well, 
and took them warm to the breakfast table, for which 



8i 



he received the chief lady's praise as a person that un* 
derstood his business : this little compliment from so 
great a lady, stimulated him to more assiduity, so that 
in the course of a few days the cabin was regenerated 
in its appearance ; which pleased the captain so well, 
that he took him a-one-side and told Onesimus, that if 
he would take charge of the cabin altogether he would 
unship the steward and give him his birth if he thought 
he was able to manage the cabin business himself; he 
answered the captain that as*the voyage was drawing to 
close, and he viewed himself too young for such a 
charge, but that he would do the best he could to make 
the cabin as agreeable to Mr, Bingham and his lady as 
he possibly could, when the captain acquiesced with his 
views in this business ; and the lad had plenty of good 
fare to the end of the passage. And it came to pass, 
a few days after this, and it being a pleasant day, after 
dinner was over, Mr. Bingham, his consort, the physi- 
cian and captain Villet, went all on deck to enjoy the 
gentle sea breeze ; Mrs. Bingham called Onesimus and 
desired him to go and ask the steward for the index of 
some work she was reading, but he being so exceeding- 
ly ignorant of the character of books in general, that he 
forgot the title of the work, and asked the steward for 
the index of the bible, when he went on deck and re- 
turned the steward's answer to the lady, that there was 
no index to the Bible in the cabin ; when the lady in- 
stantly communicated his blunder to the captain, phy- 
sician, and her consort, when it simultaneously raised 
the flame of their risibility to the fevered acme of a 
roar of laughter, in poor stupid Onesimus. But he 
took special care not not to name that conscience dis - 
turbing book in her ladyship's audibility any more ; but 
you remember dear old shipmate, that our watchword 
on shipboard during the voyage of the ship Perseverance, 
was to be the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof ; so that you see the wind was 
dead ahead in this cabin, in the midst of deists, and 
atheists, so that it looked very dark and squally in the 
wind's eye, and there appeared very little hope that 
this youngster, in his circumnavigating voyage would 



62 



ever discover the land of immortality ; but God's ways 
are not as ours, nor his thoughts as ours. 

But to return to the cabin of the ship Harmony, 
about a week or ten days after this stream of risibility 
the lady poured out on the head of this stupid lad's 
asking for the index of the Bible ; dinner being over 
the captain and Mr. Bingham rose from the table and 
went on deck, leaving the physician and lady setting at 
the table, in some colloquial or desultorious conversa- 
tion together; and the subject of our little history was 
standing close by the cabin door in waiting to remove 
the wines, dessert and other liquors, from off the table 
to their usual place of safety ; when the lady made a 
pause for a few moments, and then pronounced these all 
important words: doctor, what think you of Christ? 
when the doctor with the etiquette of a well bred gen- 
tleman of the age of reason, respectfully replied : 
madam e, I believe Christ to have been an artful and 
designing person, who took the advantage of the igno- 
rance and gross superstition of the timesf in which he 
lived to promulgate his doctrine of the soul's immortali- 
ty in the world, in order to disturb the present felicity 
of mankind : when the lady with a show of female wis- 
dom and etiquette, kindly responded to the doctor : sir 
your views of the character, person and doctrines of 
Christ, are in accordance with my own; and I believe 
that when we die, there will remain no more of us than 
there does of the poultry in the coops on deck ; when 
the lady further observed to the physician, that for a 
lady, about sixty years in this life was the extent of fe- 
male happiness, and that she had no desire to live any 
longer than she could enjoy the pleasures of this world ; 
when the physician and lady said no more on the sub- 
ject of Christ, and the souPs immortality. 

And it came to pass, that as Onesimus stood in wait 
till this gentleman and lady, had reciprocally inter- 
changed their views to each other— on their text, what 
think ye of Christ? that the subject was brought with 
much interest to his mind, as also the doctor's shrewd 
and learned reply ; so that he never after this discourse 
could for any length of time, banish the lady's text of 



83 



what think ye of Christ, from his mind ; and it heing 
the first time for about seven years, that he had thought 
either of Christ or his soul's immortality ; viz., the ser- 
mon he had heard the Rev. gentlemen preach in 1779, 
from who is the king of glory, when he wept and pray- 
ed for a few weeks : thus our dear old shipmate may 
see, that when the almighty wishes the aid of officious 
man in the great work of a solitary sinner's salvation, he 
has always the most suitable and efficacious means under 
his own control, and if so in the case of this ignorant 
and stupid Onesimus, how much more so, when his time 
shall fully come for filling the earth with the knowledge 
of his truth, and glory of the gospel of his Son : so that 
once more we are led to hear our watchword whistling 
through the rigging of the ship Perseverance, the wind 
of the spirit of God bloweth where it listeth, but it is 
the Lord that must open the adder's ear of sinful man, 
to hear the sound thereof. 




No. 1. The ship Harmony, commanded by captain Villet, sailing 

under jurymasls from London to the city of Philadelphia, with 

a young prodigal on board. 
No. 2. The lady asking the doctor what he thinks of Christ. 
No. 3. The wise physician (a disciple of the age of reason,) giving 

the lady his views of the person, character and doctrine of 

Christ. 

No. 4. Onesinus listening at their profound wisdom, in their ex- 
patiating on the doctrine, person and the character of -the Son 
of God, when the holy spirit fastening their discussion of the 
subject on his mind, which he could never shake off. 

A jYote to the wise ladies, who live in this wonderful 

age. 

Dear ladies, when the indulgent providence, has been 
so kind to you, as to place you in this dying and sinful 
world, above the wants and privations of the poor, and 
your mind has been more or less cultivated by educa- 
tion, so that when you are seated round the festive 
board, on which is spread the creatures of God ; don't 
do nor say, as the physician and lady did on board the 
ship Harmony, in 1786 ; viz., be cautious how you 
bring out the Lamb of God, and place him in the midst 
of the decanters filled with wine on the festive board, 



85 



nor as they did place a fooPs cap on his head, and call 
an artful knave ; how much more ladies, would it be be- 
coming your delicate nature and angelic form and finer 
sensibilities of your sex, would be such ideas as these 
passing through your mind, and gliding off your sweef? 
tongues, which would give a fragrance to the ambient 
air that surround your persons, and cause God and an- 
gels to love and admire you ; when all thy mercies, Lord, 
my rising soul surveys, why are not all those softer pas- 
sions, with which God hast so wonderfully distinguish- 
ed our sex, transported into wonder love and praise ; 
and may the lady's text be so ingrafted into your minds, 
so that you may never be able, to shake it off in time, 
nor to all eternity, and the grace and spirit of the Lord 
enable you to give a more happy exposition of the text 
than the lady and physician gave of it, on board the ship 
Harmony, in April, 1786. And may Israel's God, give 
light to your mental vision, and direct the eye of your 
souls to converge all their energies on that glorious and 
divine person, whom the princely pen of one of Israel's 
wisest kings has painted in all the glowing colours, 
which either nature or art contains, when his rich and 
excursive mind flies over the vast museum of nature's 
wonderful works, and also all the exhibitions of art, in 
order that his excursive powers of mind, might grasp 
some figure or imagery, either in earth or heaven to set 
forth the person and glory of Jesus Christ, before his 
beloved spouse the church, in order to draw her heart 
and affections from off the ephemeral joys of a time 
state ; when his spouse, viz., the church, points us to 
Christ the bridegroom leading the spouse along the 
banks of the river of life, and directing her attention to 
every exhibition of the works and power of God, and 
every expression of the personal glories of Jesus Christ, 
so when the Lord discovers that his bride is so trans- 
ported with his glory and beauty, that the holy fire 
rises on the altar of her devout soul, and carries her out 
of sight of all created objects ; when her sparkling eyes 
and rolling vision simultaneously converges on his God- 
head and exclaims ; but still at the same time she seems 
to want some more expressive language than her earth 



86 



born tongue can in her militant state command ; he is 
altogether lovely : when the Lord observing the soft and 
delicate constitution of his blood bought bride, to sus- 
tain her here below, when the Lord takes the golden 
^phial filled with myrrh, frankincense, and other aro- 
matic spices of the east of the paradise of God, and 
gently presenting the same to the olfactory nerves of 
her blood washed soul, when she instantly revives, and 
says his fruit is sweet to her taste : May the reader's 
soul catch the zeal and love of the church, and exclaim, 
his loveliness my soul prepossesses and left no room for 
any other guest ; dear reader, the choice of this impor- 
tant text of holy writ, by a lady on board the ship Har- 
mony, for her and the physician to investigate, is one 
of the first magnitude under the sun, and is equally 
worthy the serious attention of all the reflecting powers 
of the human mind ; yes, the grandeur and rising im- 
portance of this text will in the great theatre of a coming 
world, elicit the profound attention of men and angels, 
which people the vast empire of the worlds of glory, 
when his friends and enemies shall hear his voice as the 
sound of many waters, then will the gay lady on board 
the ship Harmony, in 1786, learn that there remains 
something more of the human subject after death, than 
of the poultry on the deck of the ship Harmony ; and 
the fastidious physician with all his skeptical brethren 
will then learn, when perhaps too late for their eternal 
happiness, these two all-important traits in the wisdom, 
power and character of Christ ; first, that he is the only 
physician of a sin-sick soul, and the other trait in his 
person and character is, that, they shall then learn to 
their eternal undoing that Christ was no artful deceiver 
of mankind, likewise that he will not follow in the wake 
of thousands of earthly physicians, and bury with them 
all his imperfect work under ground, for the want of a 
perfect knowledge of their disease, and how wisely to 
apply the balm of Gilead in all their diversified cases, 
so that he will not do as they have done in thousands of 
cases, bury their blunders under the sods of the valley. 
Dear old shipmate, in that day he shall show the fastidi- 
ous and scoffing gentlemen of the eighteenth and nine- 



87 



teenth centuries, that he who declares he can measure 
the waters of the sea in the hollow of his hand, can also 
with equal ease, analyze the whole of our little globe of 
water and earth, from its centre to its circumference ; 
and find an immortal spirit for the sons and daughters of 
sinful Adam ; and their bodies too, notwithstanding all 
the deleterious revolution through which the body shall, 
or may have passed in this militant state, then shall the 
weight and solemn importance of these five little words, 
what think ye of Christ, arise in all their native gran- 
deur, when all the passing glory of proud Egypt, old 
Assyria, Chaldea, Media and Persia, Greece and migh- 
ty Rome, with the nations of the earth, that have in a 
greater or less degree rose out of the last iron-bound 
empire are no more, then shall the crest of his Godhead 
out- dazzle all created glory, either in earth or heaven ; 
then we humbly ask, who shall wear the foolscap, 
Christ and his friends, or his skeptical and atheistical 
enemies ? let common sense give the answer ; to wit, 
that all the fore-named gentlemen will have their turn 
to wear the foolscap in the presence of the spirits of just 
men made perfect -through the blood of Christ and also 
in the presence of God and holy angels ; while the te- 
dious hour-glass of eternity is running its interminable 
sands through the same ; when the glory and grandeur 
of Christ, who had for a few moments to wear a fool's 
cap in the cabin of the ship Harmony, before the lady 
and physician, we say dear old shipmate, the curtain of 
darkness and skeptical vanity shall then be raised, and 
his mediatorial kingdom in that decisive day, and his re- 
fulgent glory shall cause the sun in our heavens to look 
pale, and cause all the before named nations and empires, 
to retire into oblivion, and pass away like a summer 
cloud evaporates or disappears under the burning rays 
of a solar sun. 

Then shall all those nations and empires whose names 
we have so often called over on the deck of the ship 
Perseverance, with all other nations of the earth whose 
names and characters are so numerous, that we cannot 
speak of them in detail, shall drop their poor ephemer- 
al wings and retire into the shades of eternal forgetful- 



88 



ness, as being unworthy the notice of intelligent beings : 
having ended our few remarks on the lady's text, what 
think ye of Christ ? about the 20th of May, the ship 
made the capes of the Delaware, and when she reached 
a small town on the river named Chester, the lady and 
suit went on shore after a tedious passage of more than 
eight weeks ; and she gave Onesimus a small piece of 
gold and he saw her no more, although he was invited 
by some of her servants to call and see her ; but he 
viewed himself too low bred to visit such great folks, 
and as we have no doubt nearly exhausted your patience 
and almost deafened your ears with some of the discor- 
dant sounds of our sea-faring words and figures, we will 
close the log-book and put up the inkhorn till we get a 
breeze off the land. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 

Off Chester j on the river Delaware, Ma^ 
ZZndy 1786. 



89 



LETTER XII. 

Onesimus engages with captain Villet to go again a3 a lad before 
the mast in the ship Harmony to London, but staying out of the 
city a day or two more than he ought, when he went into the city 
the captain had shipped all his hands, and being disappointed he 
finally gave up the idea of a sea-faring life, and his father and 
some of the rest of the family became excited about the salvation 
of their souls, which finally led Onesimus to go and hear the gos- 
pel, and to quit the sea altogether, when he was led at last to hear 
the blowing of the wind of the spirit, and to him at that time the 
awful sound thereof. 

Bear Sir: 

Our last rough scrawl left Onesimus on board the ship 
Harmony off Chester, in the river Delaware, the next 
day she got to the city ; when he went home to his 
father's, a little way out of town, to stay till she was 
ready to sail, as he had agreed with captain Villet to go 
as a lad before the mast in his ship to London ; but in 
consequence of his oversight in staying a day or two 
over the time when he was to return on board of the 
ship ; the mate informed him that all the hands were 
shipped, and being disappointed he thought he would 
try and content himself on shore, until the ship returned 
from London in the ensuing fall ; and it came to pass 
that after being on shore a few months, that he became 
more and more reconciled to live on land, so that his 
predilection for a sea-faring life finally wore off ; and 
during the fall of 1786, and the winter and spring of 
1787, the lady's text would at times pass through his 
mind, what think you of Christ, when he as often strove 
to banish so serious a thought from his reflections ; and 
in those days the true fear of God, was not to his. know- 
ledge, experienced in the neighbourhood where his 
father lived ; and as he had attended no place of public 
worship since the year 1779, he generally passed the 
Lord's day in walking in fine weather in the different 
fields and roads through the surrounding country, most- 



90 



ly by himself — for he was never fond like many others 
of his age of being in much company, nor going like the 
young folks of the neighbourhood, to dances, or any 
other public amusements ; so that it was by this singular 
turn of mind, that he was preserved in those days from 
the grosser vices of many young persons ; but notwith- 
standing this trait in his character, the true fear of God 
was not before his eyes, with the exception of the lady's 
text, which would once in a while dart through his 
mind like a flash of lightning, but in every other res- 
pect the true fear of God was not as the scriptures say, 
in all his thoughts either by day or night ; after this to 
the end of the year 1787, there is nothing that can be 
distinctly recollected at this length of time, that is wor- 
thy of notice in the log-book of the ship Perseverance ; 
there seemed almost a dead calm, as the wind of God's 
spirit did not blow a gale at that time on his guilty soul. 

Somewhere about the commencement of 1788, his 
father and part of his family were elicited by the popu- 
lar preaching of one Joseph Pilmore, who had ante- 
cedently been in connection with the Rev. John Wes- 
ley, and if our memory is correct, Mr. Pilmore, and a 
Mr. Boardman, were the first of the methodist ministers 
who introduced Mr. Wesley's doctrine and discipline 
into North America, at the city of New York ; but the 
war of 1776 coming on, Mr. Pilmore returned to Eng- 
land, and from some misunderstanding between these 
reverend gentlemen, Mr. Pilmore left the growing- 
interest of Mr. Wesley and joined himself to the fellow- 
ship of the church of England ; and in a few years after 
the peace of 1783, Mr. Pilmore came over to America, 
as an episcopal clergyman of the church of England ; 
and on his coming to Philadelphia, (he was either by 
the wardens or trustees of St. Paul's Church of that 
city, invited to preach on Lord's day evenings, of which 
one Parson McGaw was the Rector,) Mr. Pilmore be- 
came so popular, that the church or meeting-house was 
especially on Sunday evenings, filled with hearers to a 
state of overflowing, and among his admirers was his 
father and part of his family ; and Onesimus observing 
his father and some of the rest of his family speaking in 



91 



terms of the highest praise of his sermons, when he 
thought to himself, since there is so much said about this 
preacher, he would go and hear for himself ; so accord- 
ingly on the following Lord's day evening, he left his 
father's house in an opposite direction from the city, for 
he was ashamed that either his father or any of the rest 
of the family, or any of the people of the place, should 
entertain the most distant idea of his going to a place of 
worship ; so when he thought himself at a sufficient 
distance so as not to be observed, he turned about 
and went into the city by a different road from that 
which the rest of the family went, and by the time he 
reached St. Paul's Church, it was so crowded with 
people, not only the pews but all the aisles of the church, 
were so filled with hearers, that this prodigal sinner 
eould scarcely find room to stand in the main aisle of 
the church ; but he stood during the whole of the dis- 
course, and as parson Pilmore was describing the love 
of God through the meritorious grace and righteousness 
of Jesus Christ towards sinful man, and the high dignity 
to which the grace and power of the gospel would finally 
raise a poor sinner; when Onesimus, like the two dis- 
ciples on their way to Emmaus, that his heart burned 
within him, and at the same time he most ardently wish- 
ed he could be a true christian, as he thought the cha- 
racter, beauty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, were 
set forth by Parson Pilmore that evening, so that it 
brought the tears from this prodigal's eyes, when he 
formed a strong resolution in his own moral strength, 
that he would hereafter strive to be a christian, and as 
he was returning home to his father's house between 2 
and 3 miles, the wind of the spirit in a most powerful 
manner brought the lady and physician's views of Christ 
into his mind, on board the ship Harmony in the month 
of April, 1786, when they were seated round the fes- 
tive board ; whom they exhibited as standing on the stage 
of a mountebank, labelled before Jews and deists, as an 
artful impostor ; which caused Onesimus to seriously 
revolve in his mind the different shades of colour which 
Mr. Pilmore, and the physician and lady, the former 
with the pencil of truth, and the latter with the pen of 



92 



falsehood — gave of Christ as they drew the portrait of 
his person and character ; so when he went home he 
kneeled in a large loft where he slept, and said over to 
himself the Lord's prayer, which he had not done since 
1779, when he experienced for a few weeks a serious 
mood under Elder Sprout, from the 24th Psalm, as we 
have once noticed in our log-book, which he had forgot 
altogether, and we indulge ourselves to say, what count- 
less millions do the same, and know not that the true 
spirit of prayer is from a broken and contrite heart, 
than the lady's poultry in the coops on the deck of the 
ship Harmony, in 1786. And it came to pass that 
during the week that he longed for the ensuing Lord's 
day evening, that he might have the privilege to hear 
that angel of God once more ; so when the next Lord's 
day arrived, he set off in the evening of the same, taking 
at the same time, all the care he possibly could, so as 
not to be discovered going to a place of worship, for he 
had now formed a scheme in his mind, that he would 
serve God ; and at the same time he kept it an entire 
secret to himself, and he went again on the second 
Lord's day evening, and stood as on the former occasion 
in the aisle of the Church, and heard the Rev. gentle- 
man with increasing attention, and after he had attend- 
ed several sabbath evenings, he became more conscien- 
tious than ever in his repeating before he went to rest 
on his knees, the Lord's prayer ; so that under the min- 
istration of the gospel in St. Paul's Church for a few 
weeks, his mind and judgment became so far enlighten- 
ed, that he was convinced, that the use of vulgar and 
profane language must be entirely laid aside, or else a 
poor lost sinner has no claim to the name of a christian ; 
notwithstanding his assiduous attention to all the cere- 
monies and outward ordinances of the church of Christ 
on earth : and Onesimus seeing and hearing the name of 
God daily and hourly by young and old taken in vain, 
in a city professing to be the disciples and followers of 
him, who enjoined on all that took his name upon them, 
to let your communication be yea, yea ; nay nay : for 
whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil : and he 
not fully understanding that it was one thing to take the 



93 



name of Christ upon us, and another thing to have him 
by his holy spirit live and rule in our hearts by faith, 
therefore he thought it very strange that such open sin- 
ners should call themselves christians ; so that at inter- 
vals through the week, his old enemy the Devil, most 
powerfully pressed on his mind, the discourses and 
views of the lady and the doctor, in the cabin of the 
ship Harmony, that perhaps their doctrines and views 
were true, seeing that such vast"numbers who call them- 
selves christians, live and act as if they no more believed 
in the holiness of God, and the divine sanction of his 
laws, and their personal immortality after death, as the 
lady said, and the physician confirmed the same to be 
his views — than the poultry that was shut up in the 
hencoops on deck : and for many weeks after this did 
Satan that roaring lion, pester his mind with these fool- 
ish and atheistical views about the existence of the soul 
in another world ; but by this time the holy spirit, as 
the only efficient agent in the great work of a sinner's 
salvation, had at last taken this wondering prodigal in 
hand, when by the agency of him who is only able to 
quicken a dead sinner, were brought to his mind the 
most awful presentations of the damning nature of sin, 
which were daily more or less by the wind of the holy 
spirit in a most alarming manner, brought with power 
to his guilty sonl, for him to flee the wrath to come, so 
that the unbelieving and atheistical temptations of Satan, 
only coerced him more and more to go and hear the 
gospel ; as through that, as the only medium through 
which, an efficient physician and salutary balm can heal 
a law condemned sinner's soul : after this he read and 
closely examined the ten commandments, and some of 
the other precepts of the law of Moses, and discovered 
that the law not only commands, but goes so far as to 
pronounce, cursed is every one that continueth not in 
all things, which are written in the book of the law to 
do them ; so that this scripture, with the preaching of 
the holy prelate as he viewed him at that time to be, 
so powerfully wrought upon his mind, that he went the 
most assiduously to work in his own way to the king- 
dom of heaven, by endeavouring to live and be as holy 



94 



as he possibly could ; thus he went on for some months, 
by taking the most secluded roads, lanes and over fields, 
to keep himself from being taken notice of by the young 
people of the village, through which he must pass if he 
went in a straight direction to the city to hear the gos- 
pel. Thus Onesimus went on in this covert way as he 
then vainly supposed, to obtain the mercy and favour 
of God by works of his own legal righteousness, and at 
times rather pleasing himself, that he had found that 
path, which no fowl knoweth, and the vulture's eye 
hath not seen, the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor 
the fierce lion passed it by ; Jub, xxviii. 7-8. Thus he 
went on with his legal righteousness, (and we are fully 
justified in saying, cowardly hypocrisy,) till about the 
breaking up of the ice in the river Delaware, about the 
last of February, 1789; it seems that he had made 
choice of this icy railroad, to shun the taking up of 
the cross before men, and pleased himself, as we have 
once observed, that he so slyly outwitted the Devil, and 
all his enemies, who wished to retard his way to the 
world of immortality ; and it came to pass, that on one 
sabbath evening a little after sunset, and it growing 
rather dark, and Onesimus not being in the least appre- 
hensive of danger, when suddenly he found himself 
sinking above his knees in the water of the river Dela- 
ware, about a mile from the city of Philadelphia, at one 
of the cracks, or splits in the ice ; but he being young 
at that time, he made a sudden spring as the ice was 
going down under him, and leaped on the fast part of 
the ice, by which agility of his youthful nature, under 
the mercy and long suffering of God towards him, this 
returning prodigal was in a moment of time saved from 
a watery grave ; and when he found he was safe on the 
fast ice, he stood and paused a short time, when the 
wind of the spirit, which bloweth where it listeth, 
brought this passage of scripture in a most powerful 
manner to his mind : Whosoever therefore, shall be 
ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and 
sinful generation, of him also shall the son of man be 
ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his father, 
with the holy angels, Mark, viii. 38. 



95 



These words were by the agency of the holy spirit, 
brought immediately to his mind, as he did not know 
at that time, there were such words in the gospel, as 
he was very superficially acquainted with the scriptures 
in those days, when he thus reasonedlwith himself; your 
own conscience well knows, that shame and the fear of 
men, which often bringeth a snare to the soul, because 
you were afraid to outwardly confess the name and 
cause of Christ before the young people of your neigh- 
bourhood ; that caused you to take this dangerous way 
on the ice to hear the gospel, and if you had sunk under 
the ice, you should have been most certainly drowned, 
and your soul sent to hell and have been damned for- 
ever : and before he left the ice, he instantly resolved 
that in the fear and strength of the Lord he would take 
up the cross, and go on the main road to the city to hear 
God's word the next sabbath. 



96 




No. 1. Onesimus leaving his father's house, in order to elude the 
young people, and make them believe he was only going to 
see and mix with the folks skating on the ice. 

No. 2. He is sinking in the river in consequence of the ice being 
broken, when the spirit of the Lord brings this scripture with 
great force to his mind ; Whosoever therefore, shall be asham- 
ed of me, and my words, in this adulterous and sinful genera- 
tion ; of him also shall the son of man be ashamed, when he 
cometh in the glory of his father, with the holy angels, Mark, 
viii. 38. 

No. 3. Onesimus when he saw he was saved, calls on the name of 
the Lord. 

No. 4. The people skating on the ice of the Delaware. 

The next first day having arrived, Onesimus took 
up the cross, and set off with the rest of the family to 
the city to worship ; when the young people and neigh- 
bours of the village, through which he had to pass, 
stood at the doors of their houses making their remarks, 
that he was going to be very godly, indeed ; as it was 
rather a singular thing in those days, for young men to 
go into the city to worship God. And it came to pass, 
that from this time forth, that he continued to attend 
on divine worship at St. Paul's church, in south Third 
St. Philadelphia, from two to three times on each suc- 
ceeding Lord's day. 



97 



The Ilev\ Mr. Mc Gaw mostly performed the ser- 
vice of the altar, in the ministrations of the forenoon and 
afternoon services, which it appears the doctor claimed 
as a matter of right, he being the rector of the church 5 
and the Rev. Joseph Pilmore performing the service on 
Lord's day evenings, generally to an overflowing au- 
dience, while the congregation who attended the minis- 
tration of doctor Mc Gaw, were mostly small ; and as 
the doctor having all his sermons written, and then 
reading them off to these poor sheep of Christ, more in 
the manner of the ancient Greek and Roman orators, 
delivering their ethics on the morality of their supposed 
deities, and other abstract subjects of either natural or 
moral philosophy, than that of the glad tidings of sal- 
vation to a perishing and lost world, the consequence 
of the doctor's being so richly imbued with classical re- 
finements from various ecclesiastical authors; and his 
polemical discrepancies on points of high church su- 
premacy, and apostolical ordination ; but we just observe 
that the true nature of the case is that the official docu- 
ments of apostolical supremacy in the true line of either 
Peter or Paul's authority, has the dolorous misfortune, 
to lay concealed under the garments of the scarlet lady, 
for about twelve hundred years ; so it is not very un- 
likely, but this lady might during the warm months 
which took place in twelve years we say, might chance 
often to perspire, and in that case the humid gas that had 
has'so long a location under the lady's scarlet robes, might 
in some degree have caused the apostolical hand writing 
of both Peter and Paul, to become so very pale, that it 
would require the vision of the vulture's eye to clearly 
read the apostolical documents, about this wonderful 
and at the same time unbroken chain of apostolic and 
episcopal ordination; or this golden chain of episcopal su- 
premacy by being located in the damp air for twelve hun- 
dred years, might perhaps have caused this golden 
chain to rust ; so that w T e believe it will be very apt to 
part asunder: if there should arise by the power of the 
holy spirit of God, a heavy storm over the gospel sea, 
by that wind which bloweth where it listeth ; and the 

K 



98 



old hulks of national churches might perhaps be driven 
off from their moorings. 

Our old shipmate will be so kind as to pass by this 
long digression, while we were listening to the rector's 
style and manner of preaching ; therefore doctor Mc 
Gaw's reading did not make so powerful an impression 
on the mind of Onesimus ; which the discourses of 
Mr. Pilmore did, they of course wanted the stamina 
and evangelical unction of the fire of the Holy Ghost ; 
which every true preacher of the Gospel, that is truly 
sent of God ought to possess : about this time his father 
and part of his family, began to attend on the preaching 
of the Methodist ministers in St. George's Church, in 
Fourth St., Philadelphia, in the summer of 1789 ; from 
this time, Onesimus went in the forenoon and afternoon 
of the Lord's day, to hear the Methodist ministers, and 
in the evening of the same to attend on Mr. Pilmore's 
discourses ; but he soon became more arrested by the 
zeal, spirit, and evangelical animation of the methodist 
clergy, which was better suited to the unlettered and 
ignorant mind, and dull apprehension of this guilty sin- 
ner, than the tedious liturgy of the Church of England. 
As the Methodist ministers in those days seemed to aim 
more at the heart than at the head of a poor sinner, 
their ideas, and manner of preaching, were more easily 
comprehended by the uncultivated mind of a young 
sailor ; they did not use much of their time to round off 
and finally finish their periods, and polish off their sen- 
tences, as many do in these days, who undertake to 
preach the gospel with excellency of speech, and en- 
ticing words of man's wisdom ; so that under the 
preaching of the Methodists, he became more and more 
alarmed with the fears of hell and eternal damnation; 
therefore their preaching was more in accordance with 
the awful condition sin had involved his soul in. 

In the autumn of 1790, Onesimus quit attending the 
evening discourses of parson Pilmore, and attended ex- 
clusively on the ministration of the gospel under the 
methodist ministry, when he was led more extensively 
to see his sinful and ruined state by nature, and the im- 
perious necessity of complying with our Lord's injunc- 



99 



tion to Nicodemus, and through him to every uncon- 
verted sinner : Marvel not, that I said unto thee, ye 
must be born again ; John, iii. 7. 

Thus he attended through the winter of 1790, and 
1791, on the Methodist preaching for the reasons al- 
ready assigned, so that oftentimes under their preaching, 
the awful terrors of hell and eternal damnation, were 
brought home to bis alarmed conscience, till at last the 
fear of finally falling under the wrath of God, pursued 
him night and day ; he began now to view the metho- 
dist people, but more especially their clergy, as the most 
righteous and holy people on the face of the earth, and 
at the same time himself the most unrighteous and un- 
holy wretch out of hell ; so that he was afraid to speak 
to any of them, in order to open his mind about the 
awful state of his soul. But still he continued to attend 
all their prayer and preaching meetings, where he heard 
of many that obtained the evidence of their being con- 
verted, or in the language of our Lord, born again; 
some in a few weeks and others in a few days, and in a 
few solitary cases in a few hours ; so that their passage 
over the gospel sea into the haven of peace with God, 
or a knowledge of the pardon of their sins ; so that 
numbers were brought in a short time from their being 
open and profane sinners, to that of praying, and shout- 
ing persons, in the different meetings, in a public 
manner. But this ignorant and law condemned sinner, 
was as unable to open his mouth and pray in public, as 
he would have been to create a world ; and as for his 
undertaking to arrange his ideas together, either in 
writing, or the sound of words, and place them before 
God, with a dark mind and unsanctified conscience, and 
an hard heart, was as the prophet saith — if ye offer the 
blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the 
lame and sick, is it not evil? saith the Lord: so that 
he oftentimes wondered how it was that these people 
learnt to pray in so short a time in public. The young 
people of the methodist society observing him at their 
prayer meetings so frequently, and seeing him oftentimes 
in great distress of mind, called on him to go to God in 
prayer, and never rise from his knees, and they were 



100 



sure the Lord would set his soul at liberty ; but his 
heart was so hard, and his mind and soul so dark, that 
as we have before said, he could no more open his 
mouth in prayer, than he could create himself wings 
and fly to heaven; some may talk about moral power to 
serve God and save their souls, and get to heaven, but 
this wretched law condemned sinner had no good thing 
in him, but as the prophet says — 66 his whole head is 
sick, and his whole heart faint:" when he became at 
times so low spirited when he heard and saw so many 
young people praying and rejoicing in the Lord, and 
he dared not raise his eyes nor voice to God for mercy: 
when he thought he would still make another start for 
the kingdom of heaven, when he began to fast every 
Lord's day, and to pray in secret every night and 
morning as well as he knew how, in order that perhaps 
at last God would have mercy on him ; thus he went on 
a new railway to the kingdom of heaven. In the spring 
of 1791, a market boat was upset returning from the 
city up the Delaware, a little above his father's house, 
and three of the women were drowned, and brought on 
shore and laid in a room in his father's house ; this sud- 
den death of these women most powerfully alarmed 
him, and the spirit said to him as the prophet did to 
ancient Israel, prepare to meet thy God. Shortly after 
this, he had a young brother about seven years of age 
drowned in the Delaware, which further alarmed him 
of dying in an unconverted state, and being sent to hell 
forever ; so that almost every death that occurred in the 
neighbourhood, went more or less to awaken his legal 
fears ; during this spring a very heavy southeast storm 
came down on the Delaware in the night,' and w T ashed 
up the bones of a British sailor, that had died on board 
a British ship of war, that lay at anchor in the Delaware 
off his father's house, who they brought on shore and 
buried about a foot and a half under the earth on the 
bank of the river, nearly opposite his father's house, 
while the British army were in the city of Philadel- 
phia in 1778 ; the next morning after the storm had 
ceased, as Onesimus was walking on the shore of the 
river, and viewing the deleterious effects of the late 



101 



storm, when he saw the wreck of a coffin partly washed 
out of the sand of the river, by the waves which the 
storm had raised, and the broken pieces of the coffin 
with the bones of the sailor, more or less strewed along 
the shore of the river ; which caused this young sinner 
to pause, and seriously reflect on his last end, when the 
spirit of the Lord which bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof, so is everyone that is born 
of the spirit ; and in the language of the apostle John, 
but as many as received him, to them gave he power to 
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on 
his name, which were born not of the blood of Abraham, 
or any royal descent, nor of the will of man ; that is, any 
ancient or modern schemes, which the modern wisdom 
of fallen man may devise as a substitute for the atoning 
blood of Christ ; nor of the will of the flesh, that is, all 
earthly wisdom of this sinful world, not possessing either 
physical or moral power to give divine life to a sinner, 
dead in trespasses and sins : and as Onesimus was deeply 
excogitating in his mind over the bones of this poor 
British sailor, the spirit of the Lord most powerfully 
presented to his view all the passing glory of this world, 
such as empires, kingdoms with their princes, and other 
great personages of the earth, which as smaller satellites 
in their ephemeral governments, are daily revolving 
round these orbs of earthly vanity ; and as he stood on 
the shore viewing with intensity of thought the bones of 
the sailor: when he exclaimed to his soul, in language 
almost similar to that used by the royal saint, Lord 
what is man that thou art mindful of him ; when he groan- 
ed within himself and reflected — must he at last come to 
this state of humiliation! when he most sincerely wish- 
ed he could ascertain if there was any truth in his own 
immortality, and the supreme divinity of the son of 
God, so that he could with the full confidence of David, 
say return unto thy rest, 0 ! my soul, for the Lord 
hath dealt bountifully with thee. Our dear old ship- 
mate sees we presume by this time that when the Lord's 
time is come to evangelize the world, he can make the 
most powerful gospel orators if he pleases out of dead 
men's bones. This sermon which this British sailor's 

K 2 



102 



bones preached, followed by the declarations of the sweet 
singer of Israel, rested on this law condemned sinner's 
mind from day to day for some weeks, and was made by 
the spirit which bloweth where it listeth the most evan- 
gelical discourse he ever heard ; and after he had stood 
a while on the shore, with these serious reflections 
rushing through his mind he paused, and then went to 
work and obtained some tools and boards, and made a 
rough coffin, and collected together his bones and 
placed them in his new coffin, nailing them up, and went 
and digged a grave a sufficient distance from the Dela- 
ware river 5 where they lay in peace to this day (1839). 



No. 1. A British ship of war lying - at anchor in the Delaware off 
Kensington, about a mile above the city of Philadelphia, in the 
year 1778, on board of which the sailor died, and was taken 
on shore, and buried on the bank of the river. 

No. 2. Onesimus in the act of gathering up the poor sailor's bones^ 
in order to put them in a coffin. 

No. 3. He is in the act of making a coffin to receive the bones, 
in. order to their safe-keeping, till Gabriel shall say to them in 
the bright morning of the resurrection, as Martha did to Mary } 
" The master is come in the glory of his power, and calleth for 
thee/' 

No. 4. Onesimus in the act of digging a grave, for to bury the 
sailor's bones. 

No. 5. His father's family viewing him gathering up the dead man's 
bones, and wondering what he intends to do with them.. 

And as our watch is called on board the ship Perse- 
verance, we will turn into our births till the morning 
watch, and if the Lord of the gospel seas will grant us 
a gentle breeze, and a clear sun, we will write to you 
again on this solitary and dolorous subject. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Mavlin. 



104 



LETTER XIII. 

Dear Sir : 

After Onesimus had safely interred the English sea- 
man's bones, he strove to become more serious and out- 
wardly holy than ever, and in order to attain such a 
degree of perfection as would finally place him on such 
advantageous terms in the sight of heaven, according to 
what he heard in the pulpit every Lord's day, so that 
if he could only make himself as perfect and holy as he 
heard described, the Lord was bound both by his pro- 
mise and oath, to bless him with the evidence and 
knowledge of the pardon of his sins. When he set out 
more faithfully than ever to attend all the prayer and 
preaching meetings through the week, as well as on the 
Lord's day : he now began as he thought to pray more 
fervently than ever, and spent much of his time in 
secret, in reading and searching the scriptures, often- 
times on his knees at the throne of grace ; thus he went 
on for some weeks during the summer of 1791 : and it 
came to pass, that after this legal effort to obtain the 
favour of the almighty, the adversary came to him, and 
whispered in his self-righteous ear, that he certainly 
was a good christian : and as he went to the city on the 
sabbath day to worship, when passing by his neighbours 
and other careless sinners, as he then thought them to 
be in the broad road to hell, he would say to himself : 
how much better and holier am I, than these wicked 
people, who swear and break the sabbath .\till at last he 
became so lifted up with spiritual and pharisaical pride, 
that he vainly thought himself one of the most holy and 
sanctified persons on the earth; and it came to pass, that 
after he had been walking for some weeks on those 
vain stilts of carnal pride, trying by every possible 
means, both of his physical and mental powers, to make 
himself as perfect and holy in the sight of God as possi- 
ble; when he thought he had almost ascended the mount 
of christian holiness, but still being prone to self-con- 



105 



ceit in matters relating to his secular business, so that 
being opposed by his father in the execution of some 
piece of work, his father wishing it finished in his own 
way, and he insisted that his plan was the most advan- 
tageous manner of executing the same ; when he ex- 
perienced the passion of anger to rise in his unsanctified 
heart, because his father would not yield to his plan of 
executing the business, when he was brought to the 
dolorous experience, that all his self and pharisaical 
righteousness, had not changed his failing — his unsancti- 
fied heart : so that he was brought by this small breeze 
of the wind of the spirit from off Sinai's lowering bluff, 
to see and feel himself a poor lost and miserable sinner ; 
an;l that his legal righteousness in the sight of God, in 
the language of one of his prophets — were as filthy 
rags : after this little squall from Sinai had blown over, 
when with Adam — he found that all his figleaf covering 
of self-righteousness could not hide his sinful and unbe- 
lieving heart in the sight of heaven, and he now ex- 
perienced the power of unbelief in a far greater degree 
than he had ever done before : so that all his past phari- 
saical hypocrisy spread its wings and left him almost 
wallowing in the slough of despair, so that he often 
thought the heavens were brass, and quite impervious 
to all his prayers, and that God had no mercy in reversion 
for him ; but still his experience and the awful condi- 
tion of his soul was such, that he would not turn back to 
either the love of the world, or open sin of any kind : 
and as he still retained his intense desire after his soul's 
immortality, so that he still continued to fast and pray, 
but not now as a vain and proud pharisee, but as a 
guilty and wretched sinner; and as he read his Bible, his 
soul was led to ponder on a passage of scripture, in the 
second book of Kings, viii. 4 : And there were four 
leprous men at the entering in of the gate, and they 
said one to another, why sit we here until we die ? If 
we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is 
in the city, and we shall die there, and if we sit still 
here, we die also : Now therefore come, and let us fall 
into the host of the Syrians ; if they save us alive, we 
shall live ; and if they kill us, we shall but die. And it 



106 



came to pass, that after reading the case and almost 
hopeless condition of these poor leprous persons, and in 
their desperate case, forming so magnanimous a resolu- 
tion to go and cast themselves on the mercy of an hostile 
enemy ; for it was very evident that they could not on 
any reasonable principles, have entertained the least 
distant hope, that the Syrians would have ever suffered 
four leprous men, to come into the camp of a large army 
of healthy soldiers ; so that these four leprous men in 
their last resolve, were a living commentary of the apos- 
tle Paul's illustration of the faith of Abraham ; in the - 
full confidence he placed in the promise of his God, so 
very contrary to all the long established laws of our 
nature, in the entire physical imbecility of Abraham 
and Sarah, ever being the parents of an legitimate off- 
spring, when Paul exclaims ; Who against hope believ- 
ed in hope, that he might become the father of many 
nations. When Onesimus saw that the dernier resolve 
of the leprous men was worthy to be pursued in his own 
case : when he said to himself, why sit I here until I 
die ? If I turn back to the world and sin, then the 
famine of eternal life is in the world ; as John declares, 
that all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and 
the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life : so that he 
almost despaired of ever obtaining the mercy of God, 
when in the language of the four leprous men, he said 
to himself — if I enter into the city, there is nothing but 
death and eternal damnation raging in this sinful world, 
and I shall die there. And if I remain here, I shall die 
also : when he arose with the sentiments and magnani- 
mous resolution of the four leprous men, at the gate of 
Samaria : when he said to himself the second time, O ! 
my soul, let it fall into fche attributes of the mercy, truth 
and justice of God : and if he reject me, I shall but be 
damned and lost forever. But if the almighty perhaps 
shall finally shew mercy towards me, I shall live : so he 
rose in the twilight, or while his mind walked in dark- 
ness, and had no light ; when the voice of God through 
the pen of his prophet Isaiah, saith unto him : let him 
trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God ; 
Isaiah, 1. 10. This scripture came by the wind of the 



107 



spirit with much power to his mind, and he set out with 
a renewed determination to cast himself unreservedly 
on the compassion of heaven. Shortly after this his 
father observing that he was under great exercise of 
mind, invited some of the Methodist clergy to his honse, 
in order to have some religious conversation with him ; 
but when he saw them coming in at the gate before his 
father's house, he went off where he was not to be found, 
as he at that time viewed himself such an unholy and 
guilty sinner, so that he was entirely unworthy to con- 
verse with such holy and sanctified persons, as he at 
that time conceived the Methodist clergy to be ; when 
he inwardly sighed, and wished that it would please 
God to make him one day as good as he at that time 
viewed the Methodist ministers to be ; and when he 
went to meeting the ensuing sabbath and viewing these 
men of God as they came in at the meeting house door, 
and walked up the aisle of the same towards the pulpit^ 
they appeard to this poor self condemned prodigal, 
more like celestial beings, than belonging to a race of 
sinful men, in a word they appeared to be like the angels 
of God : and on the ensuing Lord's day he rose early 
and took a light breakfast, and went into the city to an 
early prayer meeting, in the house of Mr. Smith, where 
a number of young persons met in an upper garret for 
social praying and singing; and many of them appeared 
to be happy in the Lord, and professed to experience 
the evidence of the pardon of all their sins. But One- 
simus stood at the door of the room, and was afraid to 
go in among them, notwithstanding he experienced the 
guilt and power of sin to rest onerously on his heart and 
conscience ; when Satan whispered in his ear, and told 
him to take a candid view of those poor wretches on 
their knees at prayer, which at that moment became so 
revulsive to his carnal mind, and disgustful to his un- 
humbled heart — when with the Jews in our Lord's 
days on earth, he said to himself — this is an hard case 
for human nature to bear, and must we be brought to 
debase ourselves in this sort, in order to obtain the evi- 
dence of the pardon of our sins ; so after standing some 
time listening to their prayers and viewing their humil- 



108 



iation, he left them calling on the name of the Lord ; 
and like the young man in the gospel, he went away 
very sorrowful, for he was very rich w T ith the leprosy 
of the carnal mind ; and he did not go any more that 
summer, to the young men's sabbath morning prayer 
meetings, and as we have already said he left the meet- 
ing with a sorrowful mind : still he went to hear the 
preaching in the forenoon of the same day, when his 
soul was somewhat refreshed under the sermon, which 
was almost invariably the case under the preaching of 
the gospel in those days; after the forenoon service 
was over, he went out of the city on the commons to- 
wards the Schuylkill, and in one of the fields he sat 
down, and took out his small pocket bible and read the 
same, and tried to view and meditate on the works of 
nature, fasting at the same time from early in the morn- 
ing till late in the evening: shortly after this as he was 
in the act of throwing up water, with a wooden instru- 
ment or scoop, such as sailors use in wetting the sides 
of their vessel, in warm latitudes or dry seasons of the 
year — the sun being at the same time a few degrees 
above the horizon; and it came to pass, that as the rays 
of light from the sun passed through the falling drops 
of water, that at a little distance he saw that it created 
for a moment, a number of small rainbows ; which gave 
the adversary an opportunity in consequence of his dark 
and doubting mind, to take advantage of his weakness, 
and then whispered in his ear — how remarkable easy it 
was for that sly — that artful Egyptian magician Moses, 
in the short account he has given mankind, in his cosmo- 
graphy of that wonderful display of the energies of ^ the 
author of nature ; how easy, said Satan, itw 7 as from this 
little experiment you have made respecting this won- 
derful phenomena in the visible heavens, for so shrewd 
a character as Moses was, to make the dull and unculti- 
vated Hebrews whose time was occupied in the brick- 
kilns of Egypt, we say how easy it was for this artful 
Moses, to take the advantage of the Jews, by making 
them believe that this wonderful sign in the natural 
heavens, w r as a special production of the divine agency, 
by calling it an everlasting covenant between God and 



109 



every living creature, or between Noah and his posteri- 
ty : when the Devil whispered into his mind, you see 
this day by ocular demonstration, from the ordinary 
conjunction of the elements upon or through each other, 
that you can make the seal or token of a covenant, (and 
God said unto Noah, this is the token of the covenant 
which I have established between me and all flesh that 
is upon the earth,) so that you see that you have at this 
moment discovered the grand secret of this artful con- 
trivance of that old magician Moses ; and you now see 
you can make more little rainbows than Moses did for 
old Noah. 



L 



110 




No. 1. The ship Perseverance having her decks and sides wet in 
dry weather. 

No. 2. Onesimus in the act of watering the ship's sides, when he 
sees small rainbows on a little island, at a short distance. 

No. 3. The small island on which his little rainbows appears, as he 
throws up the water in the air. 

No. 4. The old Leviathian, or sea-sarpent, in scripture called the 
Devil and Satan, with his barbed or forked tongue, whispering 
into his ear, that he now had a fair opportunity of detecting old 
Moses, with his pious fraud, which he so artfully imposed on 
the children of Israel, when they were poor ignorant slaves in 
the land of Egypt. 

Thus said Satan, or suggested to his mind, that Moses 
obtained his rainbow and everlasting covenant from a 
common or natural cause ; and had the Egyptian-like 
address and magical wisdom to impose the same on the 
poor, ignorant, and superstitious Hebrews, as a special 
and miraculous act in favour of old Noah and his poste- 
rity. So that these little rainbows, that he made by 
throwing up the water with his wooden scoop that af- 
ternoon, was the cause through the agency of the Devil, 
of worrying his mind more or less for some weeks, during 
which time the adversary most powerfully tempted him 



Ill 



to doubt the truth of the whole five books of Moses, 
and of course the whole of the Bible altogether. But 
after the rainbow war with the Devil, had a little sub- 
sided, he still went to worship ; and as he was wander- 
ing about the commons of Philadelphia, early on Lord's 
day morning, and being much tempted and worried in 
his mind about the truth of the scriptures, and the im- 
mortality of the human soul, and also the full or su- 
preme Godhead of Christ ; he perchance met several 
small children belonging to some poor families, who 
lived in a small cabin on the commons that summer : 
and the little ones being rather dirty and most of them 
but half clothed, when some hidden agency at that time 
not to him distinctly known, most powerfully whispered 
in his ear, and seemed at the same time to reason with 
him ; and then asked him why he made such a fool of 
himself, as to think and trouble himself about the im- 
mortality of his soul ; and then told him to take a view 
of these little dirty wretches, and can you believe that 
such poor miserable creatures as they are, have an im- 
mortal principle or soul, that is destined to live forever ? 
When he was led to reflect on the conversation of the 
lady and doctor, in the cabin of the ship Harmony in 
1786, and their views of Christ, and their own immor- 
tality ; when he was led also to reflect on the popular 
sentiments of that day, how many of the great and wise 
men of this world, such as kings, princes, statesmen, 
philosophers, lawyers, physicians, and thousands of the 
wise and rich people in every nation, how few of them 
give themselves any serious concern about Christ and a 
coming world? When the Devil gave Onesimus a hard 
thrust, which was instantly followed with a most power- 
ful temptation to curse God, Christ, and the Bible, and 
the foolish nonsense of immortality : when Satan left him 
for a season, and he groaned within himself, and wished 
with Job, he had never been born to experience such a 
life of doubt and perplexity. When he went towards 
the city, and said to himself, that he would go and hear 
another sermon before he gave up the ship Persever- 
ance ; and when he got into the meeting house and 



112 



heard the preaching, his doubts for the time being pas- 
sed away, during the rest of that sabbath day ; never- 
theless, they returned to him most powerfully through 
the rest of the week, when the Devil presented to his 
mind his little rainbows, and the poor and dirty little 
children ; but he still went on his way in the use of the 
different means of grace, so as to abstract his mind from 
the tilings and concerns of this vain and sinful world, 
in order if it were possible to obtain a realizing view, 
and a satisfactory evidence of the truth of the Bible : 
and in order thereunto he would leave his father's 
house early, but more especially so on Lord's day morn- 
ings, and go into the grave yards and meditate among 
the tombs, always having his Bible with him, he there- 
fore read the scriptures most attentively, and thought 
how happy must they be who had faith to believe the 
gospel report, and lay hold of the promise of eternal 
life, but he was so full of doubt, fear, and unbelief, so 
that he could not by a living principle of faith, lay hold 
of a single promise in ail the oracles of God, so as to ap- 
ply them in a special sense to his own case ; so that the 
apostle John's elucidation of the new birth, was fully 
illustrated in his own case ; to wit, that as many as re- 
ceived him, to them gave he power to become the sons 
of God ; even to them that believe on his name, which 
w T ere born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
of the will of man (nor modern schemes), but of God : 
thus the wind of temptation in his case, bloweth where 
it listeth, and he oftentimes heard the sound, and felt 
the effects thereof; but as yet he could not distinctly 
tell from whence it came, nor whither it goeth, so is 
every one that is born of the spirit; so the more he fast- 
ed and prayed, the further he seemed to be from the 
kingdom of God, and as he was so little acquainted at 
that time, with the different views entertained by the 
various sects in the outward christian world about ab- 
stract points of doctrine, for all that he understood 
about the plan or scheme of the gospel— was, that Jesus 
Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom with 
Paul he might truly say, that he was the chief. And 
it came to pass, shortly after these things, that as he 



113 



was on a Sunday morning (about the latter end of Au-, 
gust. 1791,) in deep thought ambulating the commons, 
between the city and the Schuylkill river, he perchance 
saw the bones and skulls of some animals laying on the 
ground : when he went and took up one of the skulls, 
and viewed and examined the skull as minutely as he 
could, when he thought there was so little difference in 
the construction and organization of the human subject, 
with that of the rest of the animal creation, so that there 
was nothing certain either in the formation or construc- 
tion of mankind, so as to lead to any certainty in order 
to decide the case at issue ; viz., whether man is — or is 
not an immortal being, and all the rest of the creation 
only ephemeral beings ; so that in the article of death 
they perish forever. When the tempter insinuated to 
him to go and find out the exact line of demarcation be- 
tween the rational and irrational part of the creation, when 
Satan brought to his mind the physicians who had dis- 
sected such millions of mankind, as well as beasts and 
birds : and many of them never could discover the least 
trace of that amphibious creature of two worlds, with 
which Moses the prophet, and apostle of Christ, have 
enslaved mankind. After the Devil had suggested these 
skeptical ideas to his mind, Satan then pressed on his 
thoughts a number of other difficulties that lay in the 
way of the soul's immortallity in the cases of generation, 
gestation and abortions, also with the cases of drowned 
persons : when he suggested to him to go and make the 
experiment, and take a number of flies and drown them 
in water, till you are fully convinced that animal life 
has fully to all appearance departed from them: and as 
the idea was entirely new to him, he went and drowned 
some flics, and then let them lay out of the water for 
some time, and examined them and fully satisfied him- 
self that they were ail dead ; when he went and pulver- 
ized a piece of chalk, and took his apparently dead 
flies and then buried them in his pulverized chalk, on 
a table before the sun : and in less than an hour he saw 
a small and desultory motion in his little mountain of 
chalk, and soon after his little drowned army of insects 
came out of the dark dungeons of death, and after vi~. 



114 



brating their little wings in the rays of the sun a few 
times, they spread the same and flew off : leaving poor 
Onesimus like an aspen leaf trembling in the wind's 
eye of doubt and fear. 

And a few days after the fly experiment, several 
persons were drowned in the Delaware, and one or two 
of them were resuscitated, or restored to life by the 
application of the apparatus in those cases provided. 
When the adversary onerously came down upon him, 
and advised him to give up the voyage in pursuit of the 
soul's immortality : and you have now, said the tempter, 
made such plain physical and ocular demonstration, of 
the impossibility ever to fully ascertain the future ex- 
istence of the human race : which you see this day you 
have so evidently and most indubitably made manifest 
in the case of the fly experiment, and the drowned 
who were resuscitated, or like the flies brought back 
to life again. When Satan suggested jto his mind, where 
was the spirit or soul of the drowned persons during the 
suspension of animal life ? Why, says the Devil, just 
exactly in the. very same predicament of the spirits 
or souls of the flies you drowned, and thus brought 
them to life again, and could those little insects give you 
any satisfactory account where their little spirits had 
been during the time of their vacation from the school 
of animal life. Neither has it ever been known to this 
day, that from the number of drowned persons who 
have been restored to life again, they have never given 
their friends or mankind in general, any clear or satis- 
factory account of either the existence or state of the 
soul, during the suspension of all the functions of ani- 
mal life, as the body lay immersed in the water. When 
the Devil whispered in his mind, do you not clearly 
see, that the fly and the man were both alike equally 
unconscious- of their own immortality. When Satan 
continued his metaphysical 'parable, and brought t > his 
view a whole cargo of wild and civilized men, and wild 
and tame animals; and then beginning with the lowest 
condition of some of the branches of the human race, 
and then informed him that notwithstanding the appa- 
rent want of the faculties of speech, which seemed to 



115 



be necessary to constitute them intelligent beings, yet 
the instinctive power of many of them do outlive and 
outshine many of the lower grades of the race of men. 
And Satan then referred him to the ourang-outang, and 
all the rest of the ape and monkey tribes, but in a more 
special point of view, the wonderful instinct of the bea- 
ver, in its remarkable sagacity and almost human art in 
planning and forming its dams as a reservoir to retain 
the water, and breed fish for the future sustenance of 
himself and family. And then displaying its wisdom 
like an artist, in the construction and building of its 
habitations, almost with the apparent wisdom of old 
Noah, with first, second and third stories ; so that in 
case of a flood, or the rising of the water in heavy rains, 
the beaver with the antediluvian patriarch, might save 
himself and family in times of danger. Satan then re- 
ferred him to the wonderful sagacity of the elephant, 
and then asked him to contrast the sagacity? instinct and 
apparent intelligence, of some of the irrational part of 
the creation, and compare the same with the stolidity 
and worse than brutish ignorance of countless millions of 
what is called the human race. After this the Devil 
pestered his mind with the process of the embryo, in 
the season of gestation ; when Satan asked him if he had 
any knowledge of at what acme or stage of this hidden and 
mysterious operation of nature : this immortal princi- 
ple is so very secretly communicated to the embryo of 
the parent, so that if both should die the same hour af- 
ter its arrival in its liquid location — what then says 
Satan to him, becomes of this little humming-bird of 
immortality? so that if it should perhaps lose its im- 
mortal plumage in one hour, why not on the principles 
of sound logic lose the little spectre in one year, and if 
lost for one year, why not in the name of common 
sense may it not be lost forever. So that you see the 
chance of the immortality of mankind, is a very flimsy 
castle built by designing men in the air of religious 
vanity : so that you had better take my friendly advice 
and give up making yourself such a melancholy fool any 
longer : curse God if you believe there is any such a 



116 



being, that can exist independent of the eternal laws of 
matter, and quit going to Methodist meetings any more: 
when the enemy pestered him more or less throughout 
the following week with a cargo of wild men, beasts and 
birds, so that he longed for the returning Lord's day 
that he]might hear the gospel once more. 



117 




No. 1 The gallant ship of nature commanded by Satan, with a full 
cargo of wild beasts, in order to confound the mind of Onesi- 
mus, and cause him to relinquish his foolish pursuit of ever 
finding the region of the immortality of the human soul. 

No. 2. Onesimus in his boat, hailing the ship of nature ; when Satan 
under the mask of friendship advises him not to pursue so 
dangerous a voyage, as it would only terminate in the loss of 
himself and ship ; as no one has ever yet been heard of who 
has embarked in that hazardous expedition in search of that 
unknown region, so as to inform us in what latitude or longi- 
tude the country lies in. And it came to pass, after the Devil 
had given him what counsel he thought proper, Onesimus wish- 
ed him safe into port (of hell), and bid him farewell. 

No. 3. The ship Perseverance met by the Devil, who by way of 
disguised friendship, advises Onesimus to turn back to the 
world again. 

And he arose early on the ensuing sabbath, and after 
the morning service was over, Onesimus went out to 
the commons near the Schuylkill, to his old place of 
resort in the summer season of the year, for about an 
hour : and knowing that there was to be a prayer meet- 
ing in one of the poor sister's houses in Cherry alley, 
between the fore and afternoon services, where a num- 
ber of very zealous young people met to spend an hour 



118 



or more in singing and prayer ; and as he came rather 
early, when he found but three elderly sisters in the 
room with a few old rush bottomed chairs, and a pine 
table in the centre of the room, and an old smoky bible 
lying on the same. And as the whole of the persons 
and apparatus in the room seemed to wear such a 
gloomy and melancholy appearance to him at that mo- 
ment, Satan artfully whispered into his ear. what an 
arrant fool he was making of himself, to spend his youth- 
ful days in such a place and with such poor and low 
company as this : when some powerful and invisible 
agency seemed to be raising him from off* his seat, and 
told him to go and throw the dirty old book into .the little 
fire that was remaining on the hearth, till his heart was 
almost ready to sink within him, for fear he should do 
the awful deed : the invisible agency or secret power 
at that moment was so great, that it took all the phy- 
sical and mental prowess that this poor sinful and unre- 
generated sinner could call into requisition, to keep 
himself on his seat. Just at the time of this hard strug- 
gle with the Devil, the young praying brethren came 
in, and began to sing and pray: when the adver- 
sary left him for that season, and their prayers relieved 
his soul from the awful and dreadful struggle he had 
had that hour with the Devil. And as soon as the 
prayer meeting had been ended he went to meeting, 
and experienced some comfort under the sermon, and 
Satan was never suffered to tempt him to burn the 
scriptures in such sort any more. 

About this period there was a great excitement in 
the Methodist society, and numbers of young and some 
old people, were in a few days or weeks, reported to 
have been converted, and professed to find peace with 
God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: and many 
of these newly converted sinners to all appearance, were 
filled with the love of God, and also exhorting poor 
sinners to repent and seek the Lord. But Onesimus 
was too full of doubt and unbelief, to lay hold of the 
promised blessing, when he was led to conclude that he 
was so vile a sinner, that there was no mercy for him 
either in heaven or on earth. 



119 



We shall now close the log-book of the ship Perse- 
verance, till we have another breeze from off the bluff" 
of mount Sinai, and if our ship clears the mount in 
safety, we will write to you again on the subject of im- 
mortality. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylix. 

Port of Philadelphia. 1791, 



120 



LETTER XIV. 

Dear Sir: 

Our last letter left Onesimus almost without hope, 
and on the borders of despair, and in sight of the lower- 
ing bluff of Sinai ; and when the month of December 
1791, came in, there was a day of fasting and prayer 
set apart by the governor of Pennsylvania, or else by 
the clergy of the city, we do not at this length of time 
distinctly recollect which, when his father and family 
went to the city to worship. But Onesimus tarried at 
home, and concluded that he would spend the fast day 
in the exercise of fasting, praying and reading the scrip- 
tures 5 and as he had heard some of the methodists and 
their class leaders often assert, that a true and sincere 
seeker of religion, need not go without the blessing : 
which was the language in use by the methodists when 
speaking on the subject of our watchword, ye must be 
born again, or the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is 
every one that is born of the spirit. When he said to 
himself, I shall on this fast day make the demonstration, 
and put the almighty to the test of his word of promise. 
As soon the family were off to the city, he took his 
Bible, and went into a small room in his father's factory, 
with a full determination in his own mind and moral 
strength, not to leave the same until the Lord had given 
him the evidence of the^pardon of his sins. And when 
he had locked himself up in. the little room, he opened 
his Bible and read a chapter, and then" kneeled and 
prayed as fervently as he could, and rose and read a 
chapter and prayed the second time, and thus he con- 
tinued kneeling, praying and reading for about twenty 
rounds, (as near as he can recollect to this day), till the 
day had nearly worn off, but there was none at that 
time that appeared either to hear or regard his prayers : 
so that Onesimus had at this time to give up taking the 
kingdom of heaven by holy violence, and had to come 
out of his room with a hard and unbelieving heart, and 



121 



with a mind overcast with legal darkness, when Sinai's 
loud trumphet sounded louder and louder in his ears : — ■ 
" cursed is every one that continueth not in all things 
which are written in the book of the law to do them." 
And after this legal effort to storm the citadel of Zion, 
or to take the kingdom of heaven by by the violence of 
reading, fasting and praying, he became melancholy 
and was very near the verge of despair, and at the same 
time had lost, sight of the magnanimous fortitude of the 
four leprous men at the gate of Samaria ; when Satan 
the god of this world suggested to his mind that he had 
sinned aw T ay his day of grace, and that it was now too 
late to cast himself on the mercy of God, but with the 
four leprous men he also saw the danger of entering 
again into the city, or returning again to the unfruitful 
works of darkness. He now began to see like the 
blind men in the gospel — spiritual things at a distance- 
so that if he was ever saved it must be by the sovereign 
and unmerited grace of God : when this scripture pre- 
sented itself to his mind, " And the Lord said unto 
Moses, ' Therefore criest thou unto me, speak unto the 
children of Israel, that they go forward,' " Exodus, xiv. 
15. Notwithstanding Pharoah and his army were in 
their rearward, Pihahiroth, Migdol and Baal-zephon, 
were on either side as ports of entry, or strong fortifi- 
cations, and the Red Sea in their front, so that there 
appeared no possible way of their escaping the rage of 
Pharaoh and his army, yet the Lord through Moses 
commands Israel to go forward. When the spirit said 
unto him, your case surely is not more desperate than 
theirs was ? the same spirit brought to his mind that 
very comfortable invitation to Israel under their seven- 
ty years captivity : " Turn ye to the strong hold, ye 
prisoners of hope, even to day do I declare that I will 
render double unto them. When he longed to ascertan 
whether such a poor law- condemned sinner as he w T as 
in his own estimation at that time, dare to claim the 
encourageable appellative in the sight of God, of a pri- 
soner of hope. Shortly after this he was most power- 
fully tempted by the Devil to believe that he had com- 
mitted the unpardonable sin, or the sin unto death, 

M 



122 



which St. John rather seems to doubt whether it wa§ 
lawful for the church of Christ to pray in his day for 
the forgiveness of the same, but nevertheless, the word 
of command given unto Moses in the behalf of Israel, 
oftentimes revibrated through his mind, that it was still 
his duty to go forward, although the Devil as a great 
mountain stood before him in order to hide the door of 
hope and mercy from his sight, in order to block up his 
way to the kingdom of heaven, as he did in the case of 
Zorobabel, and the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord 
a rebukes thee, 0 ! Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen 
Jerusalem rebukes thee ; is not this a brand plucked 
out of the fire, iii. 2-4-7. When another passage of 
scripture came by the agency of the holy spirit sudden- 
ly into his mind : Who is among you that feareth the 
Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walk- 
eth in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the 
name of the Lord, and stay upon his God ; Isaiah, 1. 10. 
This was truly the case in those days with the deep ex- 
ercises of his mind, for he most certainly wished to fear 
the Lord, but he walked under a heavy cloud which 
was at that time so very impervious to his soul that 
scarcely a single a ray of hope could pass through the 
moral darkness that hung over his distressed and almost 
melancholy mind. 

About this time several of the young men of the me- 
thodist society, observing that he attended the public 
worship of what they called St. George's Church in 
Fourth street, for some length of time, and was often 
seen by thern in great distress of mind, and had often- 
times been invited by them to come to their class meet- 
ings, but as those meetings were so very repulsive to 
the pride of his carnal mind, so that he kept aloof from 
them ; but by this time the Lord had caused a smart 
breeze from Sinars bluff to blow away all his hopes of 
. ever obtaining the pardon of his sins by all his praying, 
fasting, and reading the scriptures on his knees before 
God, which could not save him should he continue in 
the exercise of those means to to the hour of his death : 
so that if God did not show him mercy for the sake of 
the merits and atonement of Jesus Christ, he must be 



123 



damned forever. After this he had such an awful view 
of the holiness of God and the righteous sanction of his 
royal law, with a discovery of the exceeding sinfulness 
of his fallen nature, so that when he went to meeting 
he often wondered that the earth did not part asunder 
and swallow him up, as in the case of Korah and his 
company: thus he went on in this fearful exercise of 
mind for some weeks, till about the last of the year 
1791, when he went to one of the methodist class meet- 
ings in which a number of young men met for the pur- 
pose of praying with and for each other, and stating the 
various trials and temptations they were exposed to from 
the vain allurements of this sinful world, such as the 
powerful excitements of sense, and the insidious sug- 
gestions of the Devil. But as soon as he entered the 
class-room, a small gleam of hope passed through his 
mind, that perhaps God at last might have mercy on 
him ; the young men prayed that evening most fervent- 
ly for him, when he experienced a small degree of en- 
couragement not to give up the ship Perseverance, but 
to press forward to the kingdom of heaven, but did not 
obtain that evening a clear knowledge of his justification 
in the pardon of his sins, in the sight of God. After 
the class meeting ended, he went home to his father's 
house with a distant hope that kind heaven at last was 
about being propitious towards him. After this he 
longed for the evening to arrive when the class-meeting 
should meet again ; so he went the second time, (the 
house is still standing, No. 163 north Front Street, 
Philadelphia,) and as soon as he entered the room, a 
divine hope darted through his whole soul that God was 
about to show mercy towards him: when he went to the 
northeast corner of the room, where the class met, and 
kneeled and then began to call on the name of the Lord 
to have mercy on him. The young men at the same 
time, also prayed most fervently at the throne of grace 
in his behalf, and as the enormous bnrden of sin and 
death lay heavy on his soul and rested on his mind, 
when he fully experienced what Paul had written of 
the law-condemned sinner to be true, in his own ease : 
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from 



124 



the body of this death ? At that moment, he whose 
voice is as the sound of many waters, said both by his 
word and spirit, come unto me all ye that labour and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest And at that 
moment the heavy load of sin and death fell to the 
ground/when he was enabled by faith to see the Saviour 
transfixed on the cross ; when he rose from his knees and 
declared to his young brethren what the Lord had done 
for his soul. The meeting being ended, he went home 
to his father's house, about t*vo miles from the house 
where the prayer-meeting was held, and looking up on 
the natural heavens, every star proclaimed the power 
and wisdom of its divine author. So that on his 
way home he wanted the wings of the celestial dove 
that he might at once fly away from this sinful world, 
in order to worship God and the Lamb forever. He 
now stood in no need of arguments to prove the exist- 
ence of a wise and powerful God, and the truth of the 
gospel of his dear Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ : and as Paul writes to the Church of Christ at 
Rome, that the invisible things of the nature and at- 
tributes of God was now clearly seen by this young 
sailor, even his eternal power and Godhead. 



125 




No. 1. The young sailor enters the class-room with the body of sin 

and death on his back. 
No. 2. The sailor with the young brethren on their knees calling 

on God the father, through the name and merits of his Son 

Jesus Christ, to have mercy upon him, and deliver him from 

this body of sin and death. 
No. 8. The heavy load of sin and death falls to the ground, when 

the young sailor had by a living faith a view of the Saviour 

transfixed on the cross. 
No. 4. The young sailor declaring to his young brethren what the 

Lord had done for his soul. 
No. 5. The young sailor on his way home to his father's house, 

who now wants no theological argument to prove the existence 

of a God. 

And it came to pass, that during the whole of that 
auspicious and memorable night, that his whole soul 
was so filled with the love of God that he could say with 
the apostle John, " God is love, and he that dwelleth 
in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him. Till in the 
embrace of sleep he swooned away, and when he awoke 
in the morning with a new spiritual vision, the sun 
seemed to preach the glory and majesty of its God, and 
the whole empire of nature seeemed to join with the 
sailor in one universal anthem of joy and praise, so that 



126 



he could truly say, salvation is of the Lord : after this 
he went on his way rejoicing, and telling to every one 
what a dear Saviour he had found. The change was 
so great that all earthly inclinations were taken from 
him, so that he could only say with the poet, to all the 
fascinating allurements of sense, away all ye objects that 
divert or seek to draw from my dear Lord my heart, for 
his loveliness my soul hath prepossessed and left no room 
for any other guest. 

After this he went on in the new born way for several 
weeks, until a work entitled, 66 the saint's everlasting 
rest," fell into his hands, when he was led to see that 
such numbers of the people in his neighbourhood who 
were living and dying in their sins, and as the author 
pointed out as the duty of every newly converted soul, 
to go to his friends' and neighbours' houses and read the 
scriptures and converse and pray with them, so that 
during the months of January, February and March, 
1792, Onesimus and a young person of the methodist 
society by the name of Jesse Smith, adopted Baxter's 
plan of warning poor sinners to flee the wrath to come. 
When they went from house to house through the same 
village, that he about a year before was ashamed to be 
seen going through on the Lord's day to a place of 
worship : but in this new business the young sailor was 
the chief pioneer in endeavouring to be instrumental in 
bringing his friends and neighbours to the knowledge 
of the truth. And as soon as the evening shades had 
spread its sable empire over the earth, they went from 
house to house knocking at the doors they went in, 
and as it was the case with Paul and Barnabas at Lystra 
and Derbe cities of Lycaonia, so in this case Onesimus 
was the chief speaker : and when they entered a house 
the sailor took out his small Bible and read a chapter, 
and was soon led by the holy spirit of God, who so en- 
larged his heart as to make some sententious remarks on 
the small portion of scripture he had read to the family, 
and then went to prayer with them. And although 
this was rather a daring experiment in those days, as 
many of the heads of those families were rough and un- 
cultivated people, but the solemn appearance and rather 



127 



awful voice of this sailor, seemed in general to overawe 
the people into submission : so much so, that they were 
in no one case ordered out of their houses, although in 
those days he was heavily surcharged with the sulphur 
and brimstone of hell-fire, so that he often discharged 
a volley of the most awful denunciations of the scripture 
against unrepentant sinners ; yet notwithstanding his 
rough and sailor like way of preaching, the glorious 
gospel of God our Saviour the Lord, was his panoply 
against the rage of men and devils in those days of 
abounding infidelity in the city of Philadelphia. Short- 
ly after this he became so very zealous for the cause of 
his new master and immortality, that if he met any per- 
son using bad language in the streets of the city, he 
would exhort them to repent, or else tell them they 
would be damned and sent to hell. Shortly after this 
as he was returning home from the evening preaching, 
in what was called St. George's Church, in company 
with a number of the zealous young brethren, they pas- 
sed a house in the Northern Liberties where a number 
of persons of both sexes were singing and dancing, 
when the sailor said to his brethren that he experienced 
it to be his duty to go into the dance house and w r arn 
them to repent of their sins ; when his brethren signi- 
fied to him that he would endanger his life by such a 
rash act, when he answered them that the loss of life 
w T ould be nothing in the scale of his t,uty to the cause 
of his Lord and Master, and he being at that time so full 
of zeal as he thought to promote the honour and glory 
of God his Saviour, so that if a sword had been pre- 
sented at his breast at that time, it would not have 
silenced his tongue from reproving open sin in any per- 
son ; for the justification of his person and the pardon 
of his sins was so clear in those days, that he was desirous 
of wearing a martyr's crown in order to leave this world 
of sin and unbelief, and go to a dispensation of holiness 
and glory. So he went into the dance house and opened 
the artillery of the Bible upon them, the man stopped 
his fiddle and the rest their dancing, and looked amazed 
at each other ; and after he had warned them to flee 
the wrath to come, he left them to reflect on what thej 



123 



had heard : when they all left the house and there was 
no more dancing that night. After this daring experi- 
ment in the case of the dance house, he went on exhort- 
ing and warning his fellow sinners to escape the dam- 
nation of hell : during all the spring of 1792, and until 
about the first of June, there was nothing worthy of 
special notice transpired. And now our sea-faring 
brother will kindly indulge us to close this letter, and 
when the wind of the holy spirit bloweth whei e it list- 
eth, and we hear the sound thereof from the gospel 
heavens, and it filleth the sails of the ship Perseverance, 
we will write to you again something more of what be- 
fel him during his voyage in search of the immortality 
of the human soul. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph MAyLix. 

Philadelphia, May 20M, 1839. 



129 



LETTER XV. 

Bear Sir : 

Our last scratch of the goose quill left the sailor a 
zealous reprover of the open sins of the age, after thi s 
in June. 1792, there was a meeting in Kensington next 
door to Mr. George Eyre, master shipwright, the place 
was filled to overflowing; and after waiting for some 
time, and the expected minister not coming, the spirit 
of the Lord moved him to go forward : and after sing- 
ing and praying, he took out his small Bible and when 
he had opened it, the words which first elicited his at- 
tention were these : "Go to the ant thou sluggard ; con- 
sider her ways and be wise. Which having no guide, 
overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, 
and gathereth her food in the harvest;"' Proverbs vi. 
6-7-8. This being the first time he had ever preach- 
ed from a text of scripture, and had no idea of opening 
his mouth in the meeting, and of course had not pre- 
meditated a single thought on the subject of the text, 
or in any way whatever connected or arranged his 
ideas on this portion of holy writ, yet such was the 
liberty of soul which the Lord gave him on that occa- 
sion, that it solemnly arrested the attention of all pre- 
sent. Through the week there were many observations 
made by them who heard the sailors first sermon, while 
others were wondering who taught him how to preach, 
and like the Jews in our Lord's case, some of them mar- 
velled, saying — how knoweth this sailor letters never 
having learnt them. From this time forth he gave 
himself up to prayer, fasting, reading and expounding 
the scriptures to the people in his own anti-theological 
manner of warning his fellow sinners to flee the wrath 
to come, both in the city and in the streets thereof and 
on the commons. And also in private houses testifying 
both to deists, atheists, and at the same time to all 
ether sinners repentance towards God, and faith towards 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus this young sailor went on 



130 



as we have already observed, in his rough and unculti- 
vated, manner of calling sinners to repentance, and being 
at the same time most grossly ignorant of all the meta- 
physical investigations, and speculative refinements of 
the abstract doctrines of the theological schools, and at 
the same time equally as full of stolidity respecting the 
polemical and didactical divinity of the day, neither at 
that time was he able to comprehend the learned dispu- 
tations of the wise and renowned doctors of the outward 
christian theology respecting the hypostatical ingredi- 
ents and eternal elements that constitute the distinct 
natures of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost : so that he 
was not able to understand the great arcanum of the 
fashionable and refined theology of our time, together 
with the foolish and unprofitable disputations about the 
other abstract doctrines of the christian theology, and 
the various discrepancies in their views of the same ; 
which has so most shamefully distracted the outward 
christian world : to wit, whether the expiatory sacrifice 
of the Son of God, was — or was not — available for the 
whole, or only a small part of mankind. Therefore we 
humbly ask the profound sons of the christian theology, 
gentlemen is it not high time that we cease to perplex 
the sons and daughters of Adam with such foreign ideas : 
that is, whether the atonement of Christ had in its ca- 
pacity, height and depth, or length or breadth enough 
to pardon the sins of the whole world of mankind : or, 
only a very small part of them. Therefore we conclude 
that your speculations are far beyond the reach of 
our solution as well as the Rabbi in Israel, so that the 
most profound doctors of the gospel are not able to fully 
comprehend the true modes of their own- existence : 
then how much less are they able to define the secret 
designs of the supreme being, or the incomprehensible 
nature of the almighty. Gentlemen of the schools of 
the outward christian theology of 1839, do you not see 
that the humiliating declaration of our Lord to Nico- 
demus the ruler ©f the Jews, ought to shame and con- 
found us all : that is, every vain and captious doctor in 
the outward christian world. Hear ye proud sons of 



131 



the letter of the gospel, what our Lord says to Nicode- 
mus, If I have told you of only earthly things, and ye 
believe not, (or rather we presume our Lord meant ye 
comprehend not, which we humbly believe is most cer- 
tainly deducible from his reply to our Lord, how can 
these things be? when our Lord answers him,) how 
shall ye believe, if I tell ye of heavenly things. We 
think we hear the voice of the divine majesty as the 
sound of many waters, which is so solemnly contained 
in the book of Job : gentlemen gird up your loins like 
men of wisdom, for I would demand of you, and answer 
thou me ; where was thou when I laid the foundation of 
the earth ? declare if thou hast understanding, when 
the morning stars sang together and all the celestial 
sons of God shouted for joy. And again, have the gates 
of death been opened unto thee ? or hast thou seen the 
doors of the shadow of death, or knowest thou the ordi- 
nances of heaven ? or canst thou with all thy vain philo- 
sophical pride, set the dominion thereof in the earth? 
if thou can'st not answer these plain and simple interro- 
gatories which entirely relate to our condition and cir- 
cumstances in this world, then we humbly ask is it not 
high time for the honour and glory of God and the gos- 
pel of his Son, to lay aside our speculative folly, so 
that instead of our perplexing the minds of our fellow 
men with foreign and abstract ideas : to wit, whether 
the almighty did or did not, in what in creeds is called 
his unchangeable council, calmly and deliberately set 
apart from eternity some of the sons and daughters of 
Adam to everlasting felicity, and the wretched and mis- 
erable balance to eteral misery and woe. Therefore 
we are led to humbly draw this simple inference from 
the foregoing reflections on the general character of the 
theoretical theology of the times in which we live, and 
are led to pray the great head of the church to send a 
small breeze from the holy spirit, which the Lord says 
bloweth where it listeth, in order to blow away this 
speculative chaff to the moles that live under the 
ground, and the bats that fly in the darkness of the 
night. So that rational and intelligent beings might 
discard those unprofitable speculations from the church 



132 



of christ altogether: we shall now brace the yards and 
trim the sails of the ship Perseverance, as we see under 
our larboard quarter a dark cloud arising over the city 
of Philadelphia : when the young sailor's mind began to 
be very seriously exercised with some awful forebodings 
respecting an affection of a very calamitous nature that 
was coming on the city, so that when ever he went into 
the same, and walked its streets, a heavy burden rested 
on his mind, and at the same time his sleep departed 
from him. About this time a work entitled " the age 
of reason" had been introduced into Philadelphia, 
which was received with much applause by all the free- 
thinking and skeptical -portion of its inhabitants ; so 
that it came to pass, that after this wonderful sally of 
the deistical wit, from the pen of this modern Goliath 
of the new school of natural philosophy, and the con- 
doling doctrine of eternal sleep, that the churches and 
meeting houses of this city were almost literally forsak- 
en, especially by the male part of its citizens. 



133 



| 




No. 1. A frigate of the new class named Thomas Paine, just ar- 
rived from the schools of the French philosophy, with a new 
and valuable cargo of books, entitled the Age of Reason. 

No. 2. Mr. Paine, with one of the most improved French teleseopes 
at his philosophical eye, veiwing the stars in the galaxy, or 
what is called by the common people the milky way. 

No. 3. Captain Volney hailing the ship Perseverance. 

No. 4. Captain Onesimus answering the captain, that he is bound 
on a voyage of discovery in search of the immortality of the 
human soul : when captain Volney the French commander of 
the frigate, with his national politeness of French manners, ad- 
vises captain Onesimus to give up his voyage, and follow his 
new frigate to the pleasant land of eternal sleep. 

Soon after the arrival of this marvellous production 
from the pen of this new apostle of deism, the young 
sailor was accosted by several of the freethinking gen- 
tlemen of the city, who were candid enough to acknow- 
ledge that they did not possess sufficient prowess or 
philosophical gallantry of mind, to write the marvellous 
volume themselves: and others would say that this 
voluminous production of the profound wisdom of the 
age of natural philosophy would soon banish the gospel 
from the earth. When some of the deistical gentlemen 



134 



would with a sneer of atheistical risibility, ask him where 
his Christ the son of Joseph was, or what he was about 
that he did not come and present himself to the world 
as the hero of his church, and arrange his gospel artil- 
lery against this new armament which Mr. Paine and 
the French philosophy had sent out on the gospel seas, 
with the most positive orders to kill, burn, destroy and 
sink the whole of the gospel armament in whatsoever 
seas or latitudes they were to be found. By this time 
many of the freethinking gentlemen of the city began 
to know this young sailor in consequence of his openly 
reproving them for their bad language, and other open 
sins, so that they would frequently ask him where his 
Christ, the Devil, the woman and the apple-tree, were 
located : since Mr. Paine had so clearly demonstrated 
it to be altogether a theological farce. His answer to 
them in general was, that his God would give them in 
due season a most clear and satisfactory answer : and it 
is our special duty to remark what vast numbers of the 
inhabitants of this city of brotherly love — as it has been 
by some denominated — embraced this new doctrine of 
eternal sleep after death. But it is time to proceed 
with captain Oncsimus and his ship Perseverance ; 
through the summer of 1792, his mind became more 
oppressed than ever with a sense of some great affliction 
that within the short space of a year, would most cer- 
tainly overtake the city ; after this about the last of 
June 1792, the burden of the Lord on his mind became 
so intensely great, that he lost his appetite for animal 
food altogether, and at the same time all the physical 
desires of his nature had subsided, so that he had neither 
power nor predilection to indulge in any physical en- 
joyment whatever, save that which was barely necessary 
to sustain his existence. 

And it being the season of the methodist conference 
in Philadelphia, when on the next Lord's day between 
the fore and afternoon services, so that in consequence 
of the distress and burden of his mind, which began 
every day to greatly increase, when he thought to him- 
self that he would call on an elderly and venerable 
minister, and ask his counsel by stating the deep exer- 
• 

t 



135 



cise of his mind unto him in christian confidence. 
When he went and knocked at his door, and asked for 
elder Dickens, who came and presented himself to the 
distressed and burdened sailor at the door : when he 
desired a private interview with this aged minister, 
which was granted by the Reverend gentleman, who 
kindly conducted him into a small parlour, where the 
young sailor opened the burden of his mind to this ven- 
erable father as he thought in God's spiritual Israel : 
and humbly expecting that he would give him some 
counsel suitable to his singular case and deep exercise 
of mind, respecting the affliction coming on the city. 
But the aged brother made no reply to his case, but 
desired him to accompany him into a large back parlour, 
in which there was a number of the ministers of the me- 
thodist conference, when Mr. Dickens spread before 
this conclave of ministers his confidential communica- 
tion, no doubt remembering the sententious remarks of 
one of the wisest of the Hebrew sages, that in the midst 
of counselors there is wisdom and safety : when the 
sailor stood in the midst of the ministers almost over- 
whelmed with fear and astonishment at the want of that 
christian confidence which Onesimus had to that hour 
always placed in the methodist clergy, whom he view- 
ed till then to be the most holy persons in the christian 
world. After Mr. Dickens had laid open to these 
ministers, the distress and exercise of the young sailor's 
mind to all present ; each one began by way of condol- 
ence to give him their kind and christian counsel : the 
Rev. Jesse Lee told him of a very singular dream which 
he had one night as he was sleeping with his lady ; to 
wit, that the Devil came and took away the pillow from 
under their heads ; and when they awoke to their great 
astonishment behold it was only a dream. Another 
minister by the name of Mr. Askins, acted in his case 
as his skilful physician, and highly recommended to him 
a strong decoction made from the* bark of the sassafras 
tree, and for the sailor to drink the same several times 
through the day, so that he entertained not the least 
shadow of a doubt but all his burden of mind would 



136 

soon spread its wings and depart from him. Arid 
several of the other ministers present, displayed their 
profound wisdom in pouring forth a volley of their 
risible artillery on the head of this poor ignorant young 
sailor, and his forebodings of a calamity over the city 
of Philadelphia, which is set forth in the following 
plate. 



137 




No. 1. A Reverend gentleman who kindly by way of christian con- 
dolence informs this burned young sailor of a singular dream 
he had one night while sleeping with his lady : To wit, that 
Satan came and took away the pillow from under their heads, 
and went off with the same, and when they awoke, behold it 
was a dream. 

No. 2. The young sailor standing in the midst of a holy conclave 
of Reverend gentlemen, in the summer of 1792. 

No. 3. A Reverend gentleman who without money or price acts as 
his kind physician, when he directs him to make a speedy ap- 
plication of the healing balm or bark of the sassafras tree, in 
order to dipsel the burden from his mind. 

No. 4. The rest of the holy clergy who were present on this dolor- 
ous occasion, smiling at the young sailor and his judgments of 
heaven coming on the city of Philadelphia. 

And this burdened and distressed young lad stood in 
the midst of the ministers speechless, and almost over- 
whelmed with astonishment ; and at the same time could 
scarcely believe his own audibility, that it were possible 
that these ministers that he once imagined were so holy 
that he was afraid to speak unto them, under such a 
deep sense of his own sinfulness and personal unworthi- 
ness did he labour at that time. When he further 
thought to himself, can it be possible that these men of 

N2 



138 



God can tantalize and make sport of the awful distress 
of my soul : when he was led to sigh and groan in spirit,, 
and wished himself out of their presence, and as soon 
as they ended all their counsel which related to his case 
he left the house, and when he got into the street he 
lifted up his heart to God, and thanked him that he had 
made his escape from the midst of such miserable theo- 
logical comforters as they were. When like the bar- 
barians in the apostle Paul's case, he was led to change 
his mind, and thought they acted more like Satan to- 
wards him than holy men of God ; and he never asked 
either their counsel or advice to this day, 1839. After 
this interview with the clersrv of the methodist order, 
for a few days his mind was much cast down at their 
treatment towards him, so that several of the elderly 
members of the society of the methodist church viewed 
their conduct in his case as entirely anti- christian and 
unbecoming ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
And it came to pass after this interview with the clergy, 
that the burden of his mind became more heavy than 
ever, respecting the calamity he both felt and saw was 
suspended over the city, when he warned every person 
he met or conversed with that he was sure the almighty 
would shortly send some heavy judgment on the inhabi- 
tants of the city for their sins and unbelief. When the 
people said that Onesimus would soon lose his senses if 
he went on much longer with his awful forebodings 
about the judgments of heaven coming on Philadelphia. 
In the autumn of 1792, the burden of his mind greatly 
increased, so that about the last of October as he went 
into the city, he could scarcely refrain from crying out 
as he walked the streets of the same, woe, unto the in- 
habitants of this place. And here lest we should wear 
out the locker of our shipmate's patience, we wiH close 
our log-book, and if the wind and clouds of an awful 
providence should increase in their alarming aspect, 
we will write to you again on this sorrowful subject. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 

Philadelphia, October 30/A, 1792. 



139 



LETTER XVI. 

Bear Sir: 

Our last scroll from the log-book of the ship Perse- 
verance, left our young shipmate with an onerous bur- 
den on his mind respecting the forebodings of a singu- 
lar affliction he saw was coming on the city, and he was 
at the same time grieved in spirit at the incredulous re* 
ception of his prophecy, by the clergy of that day, 
But still his Lord was with him and finally brought him 
from under their medical prescription of the Devil, who 
so very unceremoniously ran off with the pillow from 
under the Rev. gentleman and his consort's head \ and 
the Lord in his wise providence removed from him the 
necessity of using the universal panacea of the bark of 
the sassafras tree, so kindly prescribed by another of 
the Rev. gentleman, in order to displace from Onesi- 
mus ? mind the distress and calamity that he said was 
coming on the city. Still through the autumn of 1792, 
his mind had no rest day nor night, in consequence of 
the burden that hourly rested on his spirit, so that 
during the fall he lived on bread and other light arti- 
cles of vegetable sustenance, so that all his physical pro- 
pensities were at that season reduced to a state of entire 
deadness. And with Paul he could truly say, I am 
crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but 
Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in 
the flesh, is by faith in the Son of God ; who loved me 
and gave himself for me. After this his distress became 
so very intense, that he had to give up all the secular 
concerns of this life : and about the first of December, 
1792, as he rose always before the dawning of the day, 
in order to embrace an opportunity to spend an hour 
in secret prayer at the throne of grace, in an upper 
loft : which he had for about a year used for the express 
purpose of reading his Bible, meditation and prayer \ 
and as his manner was when he came down out of the 
loft, he went to the shore of the river Delaware to wash 



140 



himself, and looking towards the city he saw about ten 
minutes before the rising of the sun, three rows of 
coffins arranged at equal distances from each other, from 
one end of the city of Philadelphia to the other ; the said 
coffins appeared in an inclined direction, with the foot 
of the coffins towards the tops of the houses, the rows 
at equal distances apart. Which singular appearance 
or strange phenomena, as he stood on the shore of the 
Delaware, and viewed the army of coffins for about five 
minutes, when they all suddenly disappeared just before 
the sun rose on the city. This strange sign of the 
coffins over the city, caused him to be very serious and 
solemn all that day and night, in order to ascertain 
what this strange phenomena of the coffins was intended 
to signify, but he communicated the vision to no person 
that day. When he rose early the next morning and 
went as before observed to secret prayer, and came 
down from his upper loft, and after washing himself at 
the river, he looked towards the city and saw the three 
armies of coffins the second time arranged in three rows 
exactly as he saw them the morning before : when his 
mind became more distressed than ever, but he kept the 
vision to himself the second day also, but was much 
troubled in his spirit, which is set forth in the following 
plate. 



141 




No. 1. Is a view of the city of Philadelphia, with three rows of 
coffins arranged over the same, exactly as the young sailor saw 
them the first morning, just before the rising of the sun in De- 
cember, 1792. 

No. 2. The young sailor standing on the bank of the Delaware, 
looking at the awful appearance of the coffins over the city, 
wiih his hands raised towards heaven in order to ascertain if 
possible what was coming on the city, this- being the second 
time which he saw the vision. 

He rose as usual on the morning of the third day, 
and after solemn prayer in secret for the Lord to sup- 
port him through the same, and if it were his sovereign 
pleasure, to graciously reveal to him what the signs of 
the coffins over the city were designed to signify. He 
came down out of the loft and went as before observed 
to the river Delaware to wash, and again looking to- 
wards the city, when he saw the three armies of coffins 
over the same, this being the third and last time that 
he saw the coffins over the city of Philadelphia. When 
he called his father and family to come out of the house 
to the shore of the river, and look at the same. When 
they all came out with a number of his father's work- 
men to look at his coffins over the city ; but it was not 



142 



given to them see the same. Some of the people derid- 
ed him, and others laughed him to scorn, when he 
kneeled on the shore of the river, and prayed that God 
might have mercy on them and convert their souls. 
His father and family with many others, began to con- 
clude that in consequence of his thinking so much on 
things relating to another and better world, he was fast 
approximating into a state of insanity. The following 
plate will show the reader the signs of the coffins as seen 
the third and last time, that the young man saw them 
over the city of Philadelphia in December, 1792. 



143 




No. 1. The vision of the coffins as seen the third successive morn- 
ing over the city of Philadelphia by Onesimus, and his calling 
his father and family out of the house to see the same. 

No. 2. The workmen deriding and laughing at him, when he falls 
on his knees by the river and prays to God to have mercy upon 
them. 

s 

And it came to pass, that on the same day, that 'he 
saw the coffins for the last time over the city of Phila- 
delphia, in December 1892, that he went into the city 
on the evening of the same, to a place of worship in 
south Second Street, called in those days Ebenezer. 
The building is yet standing it being about three miles 
from his father's house ; that is, the same site of ground 
on which Dr. Dyott had his extensive glass manufacto- 
ry, it being the very site on which the young man stood 
when he saw the signs of the coffins for three successive 
mornings in broad daylight. When the young man 
went to the aforesaid meeting with a full determination 
to warn the minister and his congregation of the ap- 
proaching calamity that he saw was coming on. the city. 
And when he entered the meeting, he saw the Rev. 
John Mc Claskey in the pulpit, who preached that 



144 



evening ; and when he had gone through the services 
of the evening, he rose and stepped upon one of the 
seats, and with a loud voice declared to the minister and 
his congregation, that before one year should have pas- 
sed over this city, God would most certainly send a very 
great distress and affliction on its inhabitants, such as it 
never had experienced since its foundation : and then 
called on all present to prepare to meet their God ; 
when he set down and said no more. When the Rev. 
gentleman and the whole congregation rose on their 
feet, and the minister desired his congregation not to 
be agitated or alarmed at what had fallen from the 
young brother's tongue, as he certainly must be wrong 
or disordered in his mind : to which Onesimus in the 
fear of God made no reply, but rose and left the meet- 
ing and went home to his father's house, about three 
miles from the meeting, under a full conviction of having 
done his duty that evening in the sight of God, But 
here it is proper to remark, that notwithstanding the 
Rev. gentleman made so light of the young brother's 
prophecy that evening, yet his declaration so alarmed 
his congregation, so that the next day the Rev. John 
Mc Claskey, and two other methodist ministers by the 
names of Willis and Green, came out of the city to his 
father's house, inquiring for the young brother who was 
at their meeting last evening. When his father led 
them into a large loft, over which there was an upper 
loft as we have already observed, into which the young 
brother went to read, meditate and pray : when his 
father prayed him to come down out of his homely 
study, who was at the same time on his knees at prayer 
with his Bible spread open before him ; but in obedience 
to his request he came down into the under loft, when 
his father introduced him to the three before named 
gentlemen, and after the usual etiquette respecting his 
health and welfare, they observed to him that they 
thought he did wrong in reading the Bible so much, 
and his retiring so much in his study at prayer, and that 
he ought to associate himself more with the young mem- 
bers of the society, and no doubt those alarming signs 
which were preying on his mind would soon depart 



145 



from him, and at the same time his father stood behind 
trim weeping at the supposed insanity of his son. And 
the three Reverend gentlemen stood before him, who 
further observed to him, our visit to you this morning 
is to forbid you acting again in any of our meetings — of 
either prayer or preaching — as you did the last even- 
ing, by making such an awful declaration as you made 
in our church last night about the judgment of heaven 
coming on the people of Philadelphia. When the 
young brother was for a moment almost ready to sink 
down on the floor in their presence, but the Lord was 
still with him, and in a moment of time the large room 
in which Onesimus, his father and the three Reverend 
gentlemen were standing was filled with coffins, and in 
each lay a white winding sheet : these things he saw 
with his natural vision ; and the walnut colour of the 
coffins with the same clearness aud identity as he saw 
his father and the three Reverend gentlemen that were 
before him. When the young brother cried out to 
them, do you not see all around you the coffins and the 
winding sheets lying in them, all over the room ? when 
the Reverend gentlemen assured him that there was 
no such signs to be seen, and that he must certainly be 
deceived by the Devil and his own imagination, and re- 
peating their ministerial charge to the poor sailor not 
to act again as he had done the evening before, or else 
they should be under the necessity of enforcing the dis- 
cipline of the church against him. When the Reverend 
gentlemen withdrew from the young brother, and he 
saw the coffins and winding sheets no more to this day, 
May 20th, 1839. This interview with the three Rev. 
gentlemen in the presence of his father, took place in 
December 1792, in the forenoon of the day between th e 
hours of ten and twelve o'clock ; in an old building that 
is to this day standing within the enclosure of the Jate 
Dr. Dyott's glass works on the river Delaware, about 
two miles from Market or High street, Philadelphia. 

0 



146 



This plate shows the exact position of the young 
sailor ; his father and the three Reverend gentlemen? 
with the coffins that contained the white winding sheets 
in each of them : 




No. 1. The building in which the signs of the coffins were seen 
in December, 1782 ; and is yet standing within the enclosure 
of Dr. Dyott's glass establishment, about two miles from the 
city of Philadelphia, on the river Delaware. 

No. 2. Onesimus' father stands behind him shedding tears, with a 
handkerchief to his face, in consequence of the supposed insani- 
ty of his son. 

No. 3. The young sailor showing the three clergymen the coffins 
which were around them, and a winding sheet lying in each 
coffin. 

No. 4. The Rev. John Mc Claskey warning the sailor never to dare 
to alarm his church and congregation with the signs of his 
coffins and winding sheets any more. 

No. 5. The ship Perseverance after a long and stormy voyage ar- 
rives safe into the royal port of Mount Zion, the city of the 
living God, with her colours flying bearing the sign of the 
Cross. 



147 



And here indulge us to close this dolorous part of 
our narrative, and for the present shut up the log-book 
of the ship Perseverance, till we shall have a clear sky 
and the wind of the spirit of the Lord is a few points 
abaft the beam ; and if the Lord would spare such a 
very unprofitable servant as Onesimus in this world a 
little longer, we shall in that case inform you of some- 
thing more about the young brother and his prophecy ; 
and whether his God in his wisdom and providence, did 
prove him to be a true or false prophet in this case. 
Amen. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Josefh Mavlin. 

Philadelphia, December 31s/, 1792. 



c 



148 



LETTER XVII. 

Bear Sir : 

Our last scratch of the goose quill informed you of 
the several supernatural appearances which the young 
sailor saw in the month of December, 1792, and how 
his prophecy was rejected by the Reverend gentlemen 
of the methodist church, and laughed at by many of the 
members of their society, with hundreds of the citizens 
of Philadelphia. 

After this it came to pass some time in January, 
1793, there was a quarterly meeting to be held, about 
twenty miles or more out of the city. And as the Rev. 
John Mc Claskey was to superintend the same ; when 
some of the members of the methodist society were led 
to conclude from the little discourses they heard from 
him in the summer of 1792, and his exhortations at 
prayer meetings — with his reproving of sin both pub- 
licly and privately — that perhaps his distress of mind 
might in a great measure arise in consequence of his 
disobedience to the heavenly call, in his not giving him- 
self up fully to the ministry of the word. When some 
of his friends prevailed on the Reverend gentlemen of 
the methodist order to take the young lad with them to 
the quarterly meeting, in order to give him a fair op- 
portunity to exercise his gifts at a distanee from the 
city : when perhaps the country air might cause the 
awful spectres of the coffins to spread their dolorous 
wings and leave him in the possession of a sane mind. 
And it came to pass at the quarterly meeting that when 
the Rev. John Mc Claskey and the rest of the ministers 
at the meeting, had all exercised themselves in preach- 
ing, when near the close of the same, the Rev. Elder 
called on the burdened sailor to come forward and try 
and exercise his gifts : but at the same time very cau- 
tiously laid the sailor under some special restrictions not 
to say a single word about the visions of the coffins, and 
the great distress and other serious calamity that he had 



149 



prophesied was coming on the inhabitants of the city. 
And it came to pass, that in consequence of this minis- 
terial embargo, that the Lord withheld that evening the 
gracious and ordinary influence of his spirit from him, 
in that through a principle of the fear of man he obeyed 
them more than the spirit of the Lord. So that when 
he arose to address the people, he had but very little 
to say to them ; in consequence of which he became low 
spirited, and his mind for the moment much cast down. 
When the Reverend gentlemen and some of the mem- 
bers of the methodist society reported when they re- 
turned to the city, that they were very seriously appre- 
hensive that Onesimus was as much mistaken in his 
being called to preach the gospel as he was in his being 
called to the prophetical office. 

And here indulge us to conclude our short scroll and 
shut up the log-book of the ship Perseverance, and when 
the wind of the spirit bloweth where it listeth and we 
hear the sound thereof, we will write to our sea-faring 
brother again : so fare thee well at this time, from on 
board the ship Perseverance bound to the shores of the 
glorious country of immortality, in the humble search 
of the human soul. 

Oxesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylix. 
January 21s/, 1793. 



0 % 



150 



LETTER XVIII. 

I)ear Sir: 

Our last lines brought the ship Perseverance com- 
manded by captain Onesimus back to the city of Phila- 
delphia, from his dolorous excursion to the quarterly 
meeting: which made the most unfavourable impression 
on the minds of the methodist people with respect to 
his preaching and prophesying talents. And when the 
month of February* 1793, came in, there was at that 
time in this city, much talk and theological speculation 
respecting this poor deluded sailor, and his imaginary 
army of coffins. When some of the Reverend gentle- 
men demanded of the young brother, the exact character 
and nature of the judgment which is to kill us all. 
When his anwser to them was — that all that was reveal- 
ed to him respecting either the nature or character of 
the calamity which the coffins and winding sheets were 
designed to signify had not been distinctly revealed to 
him : therefore, that all that he could inform them in 
the case, was that the vision was true, and the full in- 
terpretation thereof, (rod shall give you before this 
present year of 1793 shall pass over your heads. After 
this the ministers let him alone, and said no more to him 
on the subject : But like the Jews in -Paul's case at 
Rome, they had great reasoning among themselves, 
about his prophecy: and said one to another it was mar- 
vel IcFusly strange indeed, that the Lord should pass by 
all the elderly and venerable ministers of our society, 
and reveal this thing to a young person who has but 
lately joined our church : but notwitstanding as it was 
the case with Paul at Athens, a sister named Wilmore 
and others with her of the pious members of the metho- 
dist society, whose names are not distinctly recollected 
at this length of time, who were more or less apprehen- 
sive that perhaps there might be some small degree of 
truth in his prophesy. When sister Wilmore and 



151 



others put the question very close to him : to wit, 
whether the grand enemy of his soul was not decieving 
him ? When his answer to them was that as sure as 
God existed, and as he had a soul to be saved, this 
calamity which'the coffins and winding sheets are intend- 
ed to signify shall come to pass. This year (1793) 
during the months of January, February and March, 
nothing of a special character transpired. The month 
of April came in, when a number of both saints and 
open sinners would ask him when his army of coffins 
were coming to drive out the inhabitants from the city: 
he prayed them to exercise their patience, and God 
would give them the deleterious opportunity of viewing 
his army of coffins marching through your city. 

But notwithstanding all the sarcastical jeers of the 
Reverend gentlemen of 1793, the young sailor most 
firmly believed the visions of the coffins were from 
heaven, and at the same time he was as firmly persuad- 
ed in his own mind, that what he saw over the city in 
December, 1792, would be most certainly fulfilled in 
1793. After this he still continued his daily ambula- 
tions either in the city, or else a few miles in the adja- 
cent country. And at the same time as before observed, 
living on vegetable diet ; and the burden of his mind 
still continued, but not in that intense and awful degree 
that it did when he first saw the coffins over the city. 
And he now became both by the Reverend gentlemen 
and the citizens of Philadelphia, the entire object of 
the most uncharitable animadversions of both saints and 
sinners, even as he walked the streets of the city. But 
he still retained his full confidence in God, that he had 
not permiited Satan nor any other invisible agency to 
deceive him: therefore he bore all their insidious reflec- 
tions with christian patience, until the wheels of time 
should become its own most infallible expositor ; so that 
like Jonah, he set down under the booth of the word of 
the Lord, while the north wind of reproach was blow- 
ing upon his head, to wait its issue. About the first of 
May, as the distress of his mind became less intense, 
when he went to work at his usual avocation, and al- 
though he now worked at his lawful calling, yet he re- 



152 



mained very sparing of his words, like the ancient Lace- 
demonians with their iron money : so that he did not 
converse with any person about the things and business 
t)f this world any more than the necessity of his calling 
did most imperiously call for at his moral acountability. 
Thus the month of May passed over his head without 
any other special occurence that we can at this length 
of time distinctly recollect : and as he had no desire or 
intention for many years of ever publishing the vision 
to the world till his return from Richmond, Virginia, 
this winter ; that is, 1838. And as Onesimus had made 
no notes of this wonderful vision and its exact fulfilment, 
a vast number of the minor incidents and small occur- 
rences of the same, has slipped his memory : neverthe- 
less all the special occurrences of this singular vision, 
with the persons and things of that day, are fully and 
distinctly remembered with as great a degree of clear- 
ness and perspicuity as if they transpired but yesterday. 
And when the month of June came in, he became more 
cheerful, and the burden was taken in a great measure 
from off his mind, so that he began to use a little animal 
food, and did more or less at times listen to his father 
reading the news of the war, and the revolution in 
France and the rest of Europe : but he still continued 
to attend the methodist meetings of prayer and preach- 
ing, but did not either exhort or preach himself, but 
humbly in the fear of God waited the fulfilment of his 
prophesy. During the month of June there was nothing 
of a special nature transpired, except that some of the 
over zealous disciples of Mr. Paine, and as we have al- 
ready observed his marvellous book entitled the Age of 
Reason, some of them would come out of the city to his 
father's house, to have some sport with the sailor about 
his army of coffins, and the imbecility of Christ his 
Lord and master in suffering this bright and morning 
star of modern wisdom and philosophy, to clip the wings 
and shade the glory of him who nearly eighteen hundred 
years ago, proclaimed himself the morning star of im- 
mortality and the root and offspring of David. But as 
he was mostly apprised of their coming, he had selected 
about a hundred passages of scripture out of the old and 



153 



new Testaments, that were heavily surcharged with the 
alarming elements of hell-fire : when he would take out 
his little book which he always carried with him, and 
with a loud and terrific voice which he possessed in 
those days, read the same in their ears : so that they 
seldom would stand more than a dozen rounds from his 
brimstone artillery, which generally caused them to re- 
treat and leave him in possession of the field of battle : 
and go and tell his father that his son smelt so strong of 
the pole-cat of hell-fire, that they could not stay in the 
place with him. And as he was so very litle acquainted 
in those days either with logic or metaphysical reason- 
ing on the high subject of natural philosophy, he thought 
the best way to cause his deistical and atheistical ene- 
mies to sheer off, was to send a few of the old torpedos 
drawn by an hasty requisition from the Law, the Pro- 
phets and the Gospels, charged with brimstone ; which 
the arsenal of an sin-hating God and his vast resources 
so amply possessed. Now it was by this short method 
of wafare, that the sailor caused those paragons of the 
new philosophy of France and Mr. Paine to quit the 
sea of action, and leave him surrounded by his small 
armament of coffins. But it is worthy of special remark, 
that most of these laughing gentlemen of the age of 
reason, were among the earliest victims of the yellow 
fever of 1793. The month of July came in, and nothing 
special or alarming transpired: by this time many began 
to entertain strong doubts respecting the truth of his 
prophesy of a great calamity which he so positively de- 
clared would most certainly came on the city during 
the year 1793. But in the language of the apostle 
Peter, he declared to them all, that the Lord is not 
slack concerning his promise (in this case), as some men 
count slackness ; and that the vision of the coffins shall 
shortly speak and will not lie. 

The month of August came in, and the Reverend 
gentlemen who forbid him to warn their congregations 
began to smile at each other respecting the sailor and 
his prophesy. But he answered them in the language 
of one of the ancient fathers, to one of the proconsuls of 
the Roman empire in the days of Julian the emperor of 



154 



Rome : when the proconsul with a sarcastic smile on his 
countenance, asked the christian father what the car- 
penter's son was about to suffer such a storm of perse- 
cution to light on his followers. When the elder 
answered the fastidious Roman officer — making a coffin 
sir, for your master : who was at that time prosecuting 
a war against the Persians, and it seems that he had 
signified to his friends who were favourable, of fully es- 
tablishing the heathen mythology throughout the Roman 
empire, and of finally banishing the Galilean disciples 
out of his kingdom by causing the brilliancy of heathen 
philosophy to out-vie the doctrine and precepts of the 
gospel of the carpenter's son. But it is said that the 
Roman emperor received a deathly wound in this Per- 
sian war, w T hich imperiously constrained the Roman 
emperor in his expiring moments to exclaim 5 thou 0, 
Galilean, hast in all things the most decided pre-emi- 
nence ! So the young sailor most solemnly declared to 
those fastidious Reverend gentlemen who forbid him to 
warn their congregations, that Christ the son as was 
supposed of Joseph the carpenter, had not quite forgot 
the old calling of his supposed father, Joseph ; and would 
in a few days be here with his army of coffins, therefore 
Reverend sirs, only give the sailor the year 1793, and 
his God shall give you a full and satisfactory answer. 
After this the Reverend gentlemen said no more to 
Onesimus on the subject of the coffins: concluding wise- 
ly, as they thought, that the army of the coffins had 
spread their wings and left the city, so that all fear and 
alarm was over. 

The month of August came in, and worldly prosperi- 
ty, with Deism and Atheism more or less spreading its 
baneful influence throughout the United States, France 
and the rest of Europe. About this time Mr. Gibbon's 
decline and fall of the Roman empire, one of the most 
sublime historical works in the English language, for the 
depth of his excursive knowledge, and the strength of 
his discursive mind over the past history of mankind : 
but notwithstanding all his brilliant talents as a writer, 
yet on the sublime subject of immortality, we must with 
the apostle Paul say; thou fool, that which thou sowest 



155 



is not quickened except it die. So that notwithstand- 
ing this gentlemen with all his acquired and assumed 
wisdom, could not clearly see or comprehend how that 
rationality with all its subordinate functions and facul- 
ties, could ever retain its empire of thinking and rea- 
soning, when once dismissed from its mutual congress 
with the brain ; which led him to profess — -to believe- 
that all would cease to exist in the article of death. 
This gentleman's writings, with another fascinating 
production of a French gentleman by the name of Vol- 
ney, and Mr. Paine's wonderful "Age of Reason," all 
arriving in the city of Philadelphia, in the space of a 
few years before the yellow fever of 1793, which almost 
caused the empire or system of infidelity to overawe 
the christian world, but more especially the Philadel- 
phians in J 793. You will pardon our aberration from 
the vision of the coffins, or, in our sea-faring language, 
suffering the ship Perseverance to fall off to leeward, 
in order to present to you our views of those wonderful 
gentlemen and their marvellous writings : and now by 
your kind indulgence we shall close our log-book, as it 
looks very squally under our lee bow, so that we be- 
lieve it is high time to reef our topsails and courses, and 
send down our top-gallant yards and masts on deck, and 
get our ship in readiness to meet the gale ; if perhaps 
it may please the almighty to cause the ship to outride 
the storm. In that case we shall write to you again, 
in order to inform you how the ship Perseverance be- 
haves herself in a heavy sea and a hard gale of wind 
from off the coast of infidelity. 

Qnesimus, 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 
August 1st, 1793. 



156 



LETTER XVIII. 

Bear Sir: 

In our last sea letter we reminded you that we were 
father apprehensive a storm was near at hand, in con- 
sequence of the squally appearance of the weather under 
our lee bow, and that it were time for the ship Perse- 
verance to have every thing on deck and aloft put in 
the best seamanship order, so that she might outride the 
gathering storm : or in other words, the city of Phila- 
delphia might prepare to meet her God, with the filling 
of those coffins and winding sheets that the sailor saw 
over the city in December, 1792. 

August came in, and all was in apparent safety, and 
the alarming sound of Onesimus' prophesy had almost 
ceased to undulate the moral air, till the eighth of August 
.1793, there suddenly arose a little cloud about (in a 
moral sense) the size of a man's hand : viz., the fishing 
boats belonging to a small village in the upper part of 
Kensington, whi ch then went by the name of Fishtown, 
the fishing boats belonging to the same, as they lay at 
Market st. wharf that day selling their fish, the hands 
were suddenly taken ill and brought home in their boats 
to the small village, which is about a quarter of a mile 
from the site of ground where the sailor stood when he 
saw the army of coffins over the city eight months be- 
fore ; viz., in December, 1792, and the next day they 
were all dead corpses. And in a few days the whole 
city was in a state of the utmost consternation in conse- 
quence of the awful work of death seizing the inhabi- 
tants in every part of the city, which struck with the 
most awful terror the citizens who were flying out of 
the same into the country in every direction, as the 
contagion was daily more or less spreading throughout 
the whole city ; so that the alarm became hourly the 
more terrifying. So that as soon as one or more of a 
family were taken with the yellow fever, they were 



157 



generally forsaken by the rest : so that in many cases, 
the children forsook their parents, and the parents their 
children, and the husbands^their wives and the wives 
their husbands. So that neither the ties of consanguini- 
ty, nor the bands of conjugal affection, had strength 
to hold them together and what was the most remark- 
able of all, the holy ministers of the gospel fled in gene- 
ral from their congregations, and left them to die with- 
out the benefit of prayer from the cross-bearing cler- 
gy of that day ; but more especially so the three Reve- 
rend gentlemen who forbid the sailor to warn their 
people, these were among the first of the Reverend 
gentlemen who fled from their charge : forgetting in the 
midst of this excitement, that wise command of the 
apostle James, "Is any sick among you, let him call for 
the elders of the church, and let them pray over him. 55 
And also the same apostle's sententious views of pure 
religion and undefiled before God, is this, to visit the 
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world. After this, the alarm 
become so great, that all private business was suspend- 
ed : President Washington with his court left the city, 
the bank officers and all other kinds of public function- 
aries fled out of the city ; so that all business was stop- 
ped, except that of making of rough coffins and digging 
of graves. It was now that the young sailer more 
clearly understood what the signs of the coffins and 
white winding sheets were designed to signify, which 
he saw eight months antecedent to this awful calamity. 
The depopulation of the city w r as so great, that the 
grass grew in the streets ; so that by the last of August 
1793, more than three fourths of its inhabitants had fled 
into the surrounding country. So that it was chiefly 
the poor, that had neither friends nor money to take 
them away, that remained in the city : and of this small 
balance of its population, which in those days could not 
exceed more than ten thousand inhabitants, yet out of 
this remnant of its inhabitants, there died from a hun- 
dred to a hundred and twenty per day : so that death 
seemed to be written in every countenance. And al- 
though the sailor lived out of the city, and the Reverend 

P 



IBS 



gentlemen had all deserted the sheep of their pastured 
when the wolf of the yellow fever came, yet he went to 
the city more or less every day, and visited the sick 
and dying, and as far as it was in his power he admin- 
istered to their temporal and spiritual wants. And on 
the Lord's day he went into the city to St. George's 
church in Fourth street, and met an elderly brother 
by the name of Wilmore, who with the young sailor ex- 
horted about thirty or forty of their poor brethren to 
put their trust in the Lord, and although their minis- 
ters had forsaken them, yet the Lord was their shield 
and support in the time of danger. 

The month of September came in, and the yellow 
fever raged with greater violence than ever, it was aw- 
fully distressing to the feelings of humanity to hear the 
cries and groans of the sufferers forsaken by both 
friends and relatives. This young sailor went to the 
chambers and beds of the dying* of many of them, and 
done what he could to relieve their distress, and ex- 
horted and prayed for them, and buried the dead : 
graves by scores had to be ready to receive the dead 
corpses, so that early in the morning of each day, the 
carts were going through the streets of the city in order 
to take out the dead. Those deistical gentlemen who 
came out to his father's house, like the lords of the 
Philistines did in Samson's case, to make themselves 
sport, and who also laughed at him, but the amphithea- 
tre of death, or rather the awful yellow fever of 1793, 
fell upon them, and they made merry with the young 
sailor no more. 

Early in September, a young person by the name of 
Jesse Smith, the same person who in the winter of 
1791, went with Onesimus from house to house in the 
vilage of Kensington, to pray and exhort the people to 
flee the wrath to come, was taken down with the yellow 
fever. The family with whom he lived were so alarm- 
ed that they fled into the country, and left him to suffer 
without any one to administer those kind offices which 
the imperious case of his awful condition called for: the 
news of his forsaken situation was brought to the house 
of Onesimus' father, and Onesimus went in haste ^ o the 



159 



i 



house, where he found him entirely forsaken and lying 
in a suffering condition : so he went into the city, and 
prevailed on Dr. Rush to come out of the city and visit 
him : the doctor ordered his head shaved and an entire 
blister to cover the same ; this being done, and every 
other article and mode of treatment which the doctor 
prescribed attended unto, when he stayed with him 
and helped him out and into his bed as the imperious 
nature of his case required ; and then prayed and exhort- 
ed him throughout the whole night to put his trust in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. When a little before sunrise 
he fell asleep in Jesus full of faith and with a bright 
prospect of a glorious immortality. Then he went and 
obtained a walnut coffin, and had him decently interred 
in the Kensington burial ground ; and attended the 
same, and exhorted the few, that followed his remains 
at a distance, to prepare to meet death and their God. 
After this his father and family believing the yellow 
fever to be contagious, prayed him not to go so often 
into the city, as he might be the cause of communicating 
the fever to the rest of the family, so that in order to 
relieve their fears on his account, he refrained from 
visiting the city except on the Lord's day, when he 
went only to a place of worship. But still he secretly 
wished if it were the will of providence, that he might 
take the yellow fever, in order to bid a final farewell 
to this sinful world ; as he was led to conclude in those 
days, that his work on earth was done, and that as God 
had so exactly and most wonderfully fulfilled the signs 
of the cofiins, so that Onesimus was at that time per- 
fectly reconciled to depart out of the world : and as Paul 
says, to be with Christ which is far better ; and in the 
involuntary language of the false prophet Balaam, to 
exclaim : — " Let me die the death of the righteous, and 
let my last end be like theirs." 

Through September and part of October, the fever 
rose to its full acme, a great many of the physicians be* 
came the victims of the yellow fever of 1793, in conse- 
quence that most of them were unacquainted with the 
proper mode of treating the disorder. The distress and 



160 



melancholy that sat brooding in almost every counte- 
nance was really distressing to humanity to behold : and 
here indulge us to specially remark, that the new 
French philosophy of eternal sleep in the article of 
death, nor Paine's Age of Reason, gave its votaries no 
support nor consolation in the approach and hour of 
death : reader it is only the name of Jesus Christ, and 
no other, that can give buoyancy to the departing spirit 
as it is about passing through the dark valley of the 
shadow of death. And it came to pass, that in No- 
vember, 1793, after a few heavy frosts, that this awful 
yellow fever subsided : when the people generally re- 
turned into the city of Philadelphia, so that the different 
places of public worship were well attended during the 
winter of 1793 and 1794. And the drooping crest of 
Christianity once more raised its head over the vultures 
of vice and infidelity ; so that there were for some sub- 
sequent years but little rejoicing in the tabernacles of 
deism and atheism. Those three holy and magnani- 
mous heroes of the cross, who forbid him to warn their 
people, were among the first who returned and filled 
their pulpits when the danger was over and gone. 
When Onesimus in the simplicity of his mind in those 
days— was led to draw this inference — that surely those 
gentlemen who forbid him to warn their churches would 
on their return into the city, call on the young man and 
make some brotherly or christian apology to him, in 
consequence of their unkind treatment, and the unchris- 
tian discipline they exercised towards him t but no 
apology has been made to this very unworthy disciple 
to this day, as it seems those Reverend gentlemen were 
so most unmercifully out of sorts with the, great head of 
the church, in his passing by their great ecclesiastical 
hierarchy, and selecting a poor young lad in order to 
employ him on this dolorous embassy: they acted in his 
case, as our Lord sets forth the conduct of the priest 
and levite, towards a certain man that went down from 
Jerusalem to Jericho : to wit, they passed him by on the 
other side. 

And here we will close the log-book of the ship Per^ 



161 



severance, and turn into our births, and if the Lord of 
old ocean, shall send a clear sky, under the glorious 
rays of the sun of immortality, we will write to you 
once more about the coffins and also the yellow fever of 
1793. 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 

Philadelphia, November 30^, 1793. 



162 



LETTER XX. 

Dear Sir: 

Our last sea letter informed our much esteemed chris- 
tian brother, that the ship Perseverance had at last after 
a most boisterous and long voyage, made the highlands 
of the celestial coast; when the captain of our salvation 
who is also the high admiral of the whole gospel arma- 
ment, ordered the post pilot of the city of the living 
God, to bring captain Onesimus and his ship Persever- 
ance safe into the royal city and port of immortality. 
Or in other words, he discovered to a degree of cer- 
tainty, the truth of the gospel of the Son of God; which 
has left him no shadow of a doubt of the entire immor- 
tality of the human soul after death. 

And it came to pass, that exactly eleven months after 
the young sailor made so public a declaration before the 
Rev. John Mc Claskey and his whole congregation, in 
the Ebenezer church in south Second street, Philadel- 
phia, in December, 1792; that in August, 1793, God 
sent the awful yellow fever, so that in less than eleven 
months from the time Onesimus warned the inhabitants 
of Philadelphia, the yellow fever came and passed 
away from off the city : When the many thousands 
of its inhabitants that had fled into its surround- 
ing country, had mostly returned home to the city, 
and we ask a candid world of intelligent and 
rational beings, we ask again — what act of the overrul- 
ing wisdom, power and providence of God — could be 
more true and conclusive to prove, that there is a just 
and holy God that does whatsoever he pleases in the 
armies of heaven and with the inhabitants of the earth. 
And it came to pass, that he faithfully attended the 
public worship of God under the three Reverend gen- 
tlemen who forbid him to warn their people against the 
judgment of heaven : and it is further our duty to calm - 
!y remark, that although God had by this young lad, 
placed in the hands of these holy ministers of the gospel 
of that day, so clear an evidence in the vindication of 
the truth of the gospel and immortality of the human 



163 



Soul, against the doctrines of deism and atheism, which 
were at that time so very extensively spreading through- 
out America. But notwithstanding the prophecy of 
this young man placed within the range of the mental 
powers of those Reverend gentlemen a most advantage- 
ous opportunity to defend the truth, and to warn their 
fellow sinners against the awful sin of unbelief, yet these 
men of God scarcely ever mentioned to their hearers 
the awful calamity of the yellow fever of 1793. So 
that we reiterate again, although we by no means ad- 
mire or recommend a writer to the approbation of the 
world, who is over profuse in his use of tautology, yet 
our duty both in the sight of God and man, forbids us 
to refrain from remarking the excessive ecclesiastical 
modesty of those humble and meek sons of the churchy 
respecting this most notorious warning that the sailor 
gave them of the approaching calamity coming on the 
city, and the exact fulfilment of the same ; there never 
was since the world began an occurrence passed over 
with such ministerial silence before. 

But since it was all passed over, and the sons of the 
church were by the sparing mercy of God once more 
safely inducted into their pulpits again, they no doubt 
thought it would be most extravagantly unadvisable to 
bring the sailor's visions of the coffins and winding 
sheets and his prophecy, either before the church or 
the world ; so that in consequence of their holy and pru- 
dential wisdom in his case, they viewed it best to give 
the whole affair an indefinite go by, which they have 
with the most striking scrupulosity observed to this 
day, May 30th, 1839. And it came to pass, that when 
the sailor discovered that those Reverend gentlemen 
were so very shy of him, that it caused a reaction on 
his mind; so that speaking in general terms, with a few 
exceptions, he has ever since been rather shy of the 
gentlemen in holy orders to the present day. And when 
Onesimussaw that the Lord had so marvellously brought 
to pass all that he had in the name and the authority of 
his Lord and Master declared should come to pass with- 
in the year 1793, when he became fully reconciled to 
let the whole matter die, and go into the grave with 



164 



him : and he now wished to end his days as a private 
member of the methodist society. So that after this he 
turned his whole attention to the business of this world, 
and strove hard to banish from his mind all ideas of ever 
preaching the gospel. And it were worthy to remark, 
how the physicians and others in the newspapers of 
that day, endeavoured to explore the whole of the ani- 
mal and vegetable empire of nature in order to discover 
the latent cause of the yellow fever of 1793 : but after 
all their deep reasoning on the subject, but few of them 
as Solomon says, drove the nail in a sure place. But 
after the fever of 1793, he never had any warning of 
the subsequent fevers of 1797 and 1798, any more than 
any other person : after this, as we have already observ- 
ed, he tried to banish from his mind the spirit and de- 
sire of preaching, but the spirit of the Lord which 
bloweth where it listeth, did not give him up to his 
own desire in that case. 

We shall now close the log-book of the ship Perse- 
verance, in the borrowed language of the apostle John, 
" This is the disciple which testifyeth these things, and 
wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is 
true." Amen. 

Suffer me to remain with the most pro- 
found sentiments of respect to your 
christian character, 

Onesimus. 

To Elder Joseph Maylin. 

i May 31**, 1839. 

THE END ! 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 1 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




jj 
i 



